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Originally Posted by sigmadiva
What's your point here?  |
I believe his point is that "Separate but Equal" was proven to be wrong a long time ago.
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Originally Posted by UGAalum94
My point is marriage or civil union isn't really required to deliver any of the things you listed, other than providing the terminology of "spouse." We could just decide to let people develop their own contracts for these things if we wanted to.
With health care, why does it make more sense to offer health care benefits to a "spouse" than a roommate or best friend?
When children enter the picture, it changes things to me because instead of individuals with a responsibility only to themselves and each other, you have people connected with the obligation of providing for the children so it would make sense to me to have some default legal standards. But for the rest of us, why elect to privileged one relationship legally above all others?
What interest does the state have in regulating that at all?
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Are you just playing devil's advocate here? You could just as easily argue that people with children don't need marriage to have default legal standards either (and actually, they don't, with regards to inheritance, child support requirements, etc). I am divorced but if I die, my ex-husband still gets custody of them by default, still has to pay for a certain portion of their upkeep and still has to provide medical insurance for them by default of being their father. This would be true if we had never married too. Those are parental rights and responsibilities, not marital rights and responsibilities.
So sure, let's just get rid of all unions from a legal standpoint. Then spouses can't be held accountable for each other's medical bills, debt, or anything. Likewise, they cannot be entitled to anything the other one owns should one of them die unless they have a will stating otherwise. It would eliminate all laws regarding adultery too. Toss laws against polygamy since there is no such thing as marriage or a legal union. No more divorce court.
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Originally Posted by UGAalum94
But if no one had those legal rights by default though marriage, it might become easier and more common to create them with other documents.
I like the idea of civil unions for everyone and marriage through churches who want to offer it to those that want to seek it (and there would be plenty who offered same sex marriage), but I do think that a.e.B.O.T. brought up some interesting issues with that. Will other people still be allowed to "discriminate" for lack of a better word between people who are married and people who are merely joined through civil union?
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As for discriminating between people who are married and people who are joined through civil union, government entities and EOEs could not discriminate between the two legally because marriage wouldn't be addressed by laws at all. It would be religious ceremony like baptism, communion, etc and those entities cannot discriminate based on religion. Nobody would even really know, other than your church. Churches are allowed to discriminate based on religion. Who knows whether you're baptized or not?
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