Reply #73: Makes the process simpler, Ant. [View All]

[LeahMira]

What's the difference between giving homosexuals civil unions and marriage? Is it just a matter of what we call it or do civil unions not carry the full legal benefits of marriage? Or is it that marriage is too closely associated with the religious sacrament and so people just prefer a different name?

I believe that people who are homosexual are interested in keeping the same terminology because a lot of legal language mentions marriage and if a separate term is used for homosexual unions it may require rewriting a lot of laws to include them. It would be simpler all around to use the same word, leave most of the existing laws alone, and just include all marriages.

For example, in my state, the adoption law mentions that any married couple or any single person may adopt. In just that one section of the law, there are several references to "any married couple." We could either amend that law, and all other laws that mention "any married couple" to read "any married couple or any couple in a civil union..." or we could just write one law that says couples of the same sex can marry and eliminate the need to comb through all the rest of the laws of the state to make sure that all the references are correct.

I suspect that there are some states that would not be particularly bothered, for instance, if a homosexual couple had rights to inherit from one another, etc., but they would balk at letting that couple adopt. So, if we're going to extend equal rights to all citizens, let's make them really equal, and let's not insist that homosexual couples fight for every single concomitant right along the way.