Prop 8 is to get a ruling today

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by BluPhire

And thus my reason for legal entity civil unions. Marriage should be defined by whatever legal or moral persuassion you choose to ally yourself with. You should be able to have the choice of having a religious marriage without having government recognition of that marriage.

You can do that now though. I could go through with a wedding of pretty much any denomination and not sign a certificate.

By government standards if you choose to have your marriage recognized by the government, it should be looked at in same equivalent of if you own a business and choose to add a partner (minus the ability to have an LLC or S-Corp marriage. LOL). Therefore it comes with all the benefits of entering said partnerships as well as all the consequences of entering said partnership. And since we are entering this as a partnership the penalties will be stricter if said partnership is entered not in good faith (the equivalent of setting up a dummy corporation in order to get tax breaks/hide money, etc pretty much fraud) or if you choose to dissolve said partnership (thus pre-nups will no longer be considered this piece of paper you present to your spouse because you think you ain't gonna make it, but as a legitimate business document to protect not just yourself, but any other outside financial penalties that occur from dissolution.)

But here I think you just evidence the difficulty with this proposition. The average American does not understand contract law. Contract law is vast and convoluted and requires legal counsel. Most people don't need lawyers involved to get married (the very rich and famous being exceptions. And pre-nups are considered the way you wrote about them amongst that crowd - necessary protections.) because marriage law is, on the whole, much more simplified.

Also being in a "false" contract marriage wouldn't be comparable to tax fraud really. There's nothing about a legal marriage that requires you to have any better faith than "i want the legal benefits of marriage." There's nothing requiring "I love this person" in the law afaik.

I think if we enacted "civil unions" for all it would essentially be a marriage contract with the word "Marriage" scribbled out and "Civil Union" written in. It wouldn't be akin to forming a legal partnership as that is beyond the capabilities and interests of the average person.