Sunday, April 17, 2005

Is marriage what we want?

I'm not a desperately social animal, so it was something of an adventure for me to get out to a farewell party for a friend who is off to work on radio in Vietnam for the next couple of years. There I met a charming group of young lesbians - not listeners to Joy 'because the music's crap' (well it is mostly chosen by dance-party gay bois), but very interested in GLBTI news from around the world and my Rainbow Report.

"So what's the big gay news right now?" challenged one. So I gave a rundown on the Fiji case, and mentioned the ongoing battles over gay marriage around the world.

I was asked what I thought about gay marriage, and I gave the standard answer - it's important that we should have the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as anyone else, so although I was somewhat personally ambivalent about gay marriage, I thought it was essential.

"I don't agree," said my questioner, "I think we should be campaigning to abolish marriage and have civil unions for everyone."

I don't think I'd go that far, but I immediately thought of France, where they introduced "Civil Solidarity Pacts" (civil unions to you and me), but made them available to anyone regardless of sexual orientation. Marriage remains reserved for hetero's.

Since they were introduced, lot's of heterosexual couples have chosen them instead of maarriage - either as a stepping stone on the way, or as a genuine and more egalitarian alternative, without all the religious and ownership overtones of matrimony.

So it seems to me the best all-round discrimination-free solution is to craft civil unions open to all as the only state-sanctioned legal-coupling mechanism, and let marriage be a purely religious event with no state involvement. Relationships would be recognised on the signing of a civil union contract, and those who wanted the additional frills and furbelows of marriage could go to church/mosque/synagogue/temple and have a marriage as the icing on the wedding-cake.

After all, aren't church and state supposed to be separate anyway? What are these religious people doing usurping a state function - the legal sanctioning of a domestic partnership - anyway?

1 comment:

CUAction said...

Hi Doug

Great blog!

Your post, "Is marriage what we want" was very interesting.

I've replied to it on my site, if you're interested.

Regards,
John Kloprogge
kloppy.blogspot.com