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Originally Posted by mezz
Exactly why it seem ridiculous for government to me to be expanding the concept rather than abolishing it. Marriage should exist only as a religious sacrament, while a couples interaction with the state for tax, ownership, pension, etc purposes should be defined under some sort of 'civil union' construct which doesn't care about the gender of it's participants.
I know you have lived in Canada. The system up there is much closer to what I'm talking about. They legalized nationwide same-sex marriage in 2005 to comparatively little fanfare and most provinces had recognized common-law cohabitations and same-sex civil unions to have basically the same rights as marriages for some time before that anyway.
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The basic problem is that so many laws have used the word "marriage" rather than "civil union" that they would still suffer discrimination. As far as religion goes I thought we had separation of church and state.
I still want someone to show me the passage in the gospel where Jesus said anything one way or the other on the subject. I recall that He was said to have turned water into wine at a marriage celebration.
Many companies in Canada recognized what is termed "common law spouses" for years. It was interesting to note that Quebec, a predominantly catholic province, did not make a fuss.
I suppose if they simply passed a law stating that in any other laws wherever the words "marriage, married" appear also add "civil union, civil unions"
Oddly enough when France introduced civil unions people practically stopped getting married in churches.
My first marriage was in the Anglican church, fat lot of good that did. Second was by a "Celebrant in VA" much better as I was free to tell him to forget that jazz about 'Obey" since we were partners, not master and slave.