Quote:
Originally posted by daoine
I agree, and I think it should be taken further -- I think that "marriage" should be a word reserved for a religious ceremony, and "union" would be the government's acknowledgement of a familial unit for benefits, taxes, visitation rights, etc... for *all* unions (gender of the participants irrelevant).
As it currently stands, there's a little too much mixing of church and state for my liking. The government has no need to recognize a church marriage -- it needs to recognize a union to create the family unit.
Separating the concepts would allow the churches to keep marriage as they define it, but allow families with same sex parents to actually exist on the same level as families with different sex parents.
That way, you could get yourself a union, a marriage, or both simultaneously depending on how you see fit.
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Dang. That's a really good idea. I'm sure there are religious-type people who are offended that non-religious-type people can call it marriage when they consider marriage a sacrament, and on the other side of the coin, non-religious people who would rather not call it that because of religious implications.