Here, whether you’re planning a civil or religious ceremony (a judge in a courthouse or a clergyperson in a house of worship), you get a marriage license first. When you have the ceremony, the officiant signs it in front of witnesses and sends it in to be filed. That’s the legal documentation. On our copy of the license, there’s a blank for what kind of ceremony: civil/religious.

Personally, I’d like to see us follow the European model. One of the churches in the neighborhood has a sign: Civil Marriage is a Civil Right. I’d like to see it treated as such.

What about the fact that parents, if they are divorced or were never married, are unable to both claim the child(ren) as a deduction on their income taxes? Even if you pay court ordered support? Or some states require you to pay alimony to someone even if they remarry? Or win the lottery?

I’m more in the “private contracrts” camp about marriage, or alternatively, civil and religious marriage should be separated with access to governmental benefits, or other limited obligations requiring a civil marriage. And even then I’d like the ability to be able to “write” my own contract, even if only part of it. I dislike the one-size fits all approach to marriage contracts that currently exist and greatly distrust them when the government is the one writing the contract. And legal marriage would include judicial review which would protect anyone entering into such a contract because no court will let you enter into an inherently unfair contract or one that contradicts the main fundamentals of contract law.

If there is no “legal thing”, there are no rights. Right now, you and an SO of your choice can live together without any “legal thing” involved. Of course, you will have no rights. You don’t get those unless there is a “legal thing” to make sure you have rights.

Yes. This makes more sense to me!

I kick myself thinking I almost had her as a professor. Sigh.

Could you re-read that sentence and figure out why it makes no sense whatsoever?

If there is no “legal thing”, there are no rights. Right now, you and an SO of your choice can live together without any “legal thing” involved. Of course, you will have no rights. You don’t get those unless there is a “legal thing” to make sure you have rights.

That “legal thing” doesn’t have to be marriage, but I don’t get the argument that we should get rid of marriage, or that LGBT people who want to marry are all middle-class picket-fence-envyers. An awful lot of them (who don’t have time to join LGBT groups, for the most part, because they’re, like, trying to earn a living and raise families n’ stuff) want to get married because they want to be married. Spitting on them because they’re not cool bohemians with a New Paradigm seems pretty arrogant to me.

You’d never know it from the rhetoric by the right wing, but that’s already the system that we have. You never have to step foot inside a church or any other religious building to be legally married. Not only that, but you can go through a ceremony that’s recognized by your church as a marriage but not be legally married if you didn’t follow the state’s requirements.

I can’t do much of anything. I could following all the legal steps and my marriage still won’t be recognized. When I said we, I meant all people, straight couples and gay. My church will marry me and my girlfriend, but living in the South… the state doesn’t give a crap.

I used to be all for marriage, but now I think getting rid of it as a legal thing is the way to go, and give people the ability to get these rights for whomever they choose. Don’t even call it civil unions, or anything. Just make it a legal definition that extends these rights both ways – medical, tax, whatever.

We get our civil unions (will full rights) from the government, then if we want a pretty ceremony that our given church will recognize, go for it!

You’d never know it from the rhetoric by the right wing, but that’s already the system that we have. You never have to step foot inside a church or any other religious building to be legally married. Not only that, but you can go through a ceremony that’s recognized by your church as a marriage but not be legally married if you didn’t follow the state’s requirements.

We probably need to follow the example of England and separate out the legal marriage from the wedding ceremony. As I understand it, in England you take a trip to the registry office to do the legal marriage, and can then have whatever kind of ceremony or party you like afterwards.