Yesterday the Washington state Senate approved domestic partners legislation that would give gay couples all the rights of marriage (but not the name.)
The bill passed on a mostly party-line 30-18 vote Tuesday night and now heads to the House. The Senate rejected two Republican amendments, including one that would have sent the measure to voters. The bill expands on previous domestic partnership laws by adding reference to partnerships alongside all remaining areas of state law where currently only married couples are mentioned, statutes ranging from labor and employment to pensions and other public employee benefits.
Democrats have a 63-35 majority in the Washington state House, making it a fair bet that the bill will pass there. States currently with civil unions or domestic partners laws: Vermont, New Jersey, California, New Hampshire, and Oregon.
A Rose By Any Other Name. I'll take it. The Separate But Equal fight can come later.
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When you raise the specter of "separate but equal," people often harken back to the days of racial segregation when "separate but equal" was anything BUT. The facilities that blacks were forced to use were invariably substandard, and it became apparent that "separate but equal" was a farce. But in terms of purely legal arrangements, "separate but equal" CAN actually work.
What is more important: The word "marriage" or the benefits and responsibilities that are connected with it? I would take simple legal equality under the law, even if the operative term is "civil unions." If social conservatives simply wish to reserve the term "marriage" for heterosexual couples, they can have it, as long as Gay couples are treated fairly. If all the roughly 1,100 federal benefits and responsibilities that are bestowed on married couples would be equally bestowed on Gay couples that have entered into "civil unions," I really don't have a problem. Any couple in question would still refer to one another as "husbands" or "wives" or "married." So when I use the term "marriage equality," I mean equal TREATMENT under the law. I'm not going to quibble over terminology. There is simply no Constitutional justification for denying Gay couples the exact same benefits and responsibilities that Straight couples have always taken for granted, even if under a different name.
But let's keep in mind, as Andrew Sullivan pointed out, "that the forces against marriage equality are also adamantly against civil unions for Gay people. And they have no intention of allowing Gay couples any civil recognition, because we are an emblem of sin to them."
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Date: 2009-03-13 01:51 pm (UTC)What is more important: The word "marriage" or the benefits and responsibilities that are connected with it? I would take simple legal equality under the law, even if the operative term is "civil unions." If social conservatives simply wish to reserve the term "marriage" for heterosexual couples, they can have it, as long as Gay couples are treated fairly. If all the roughly 1,100 federal benefits and responsibilities that are bestowed on married couples would be equally bestowed on Gay couples that have entered into "civil unions," I really don't have a problem. Any couple in question would still refer to one another as "husbands" or "wives" or "married." So when I use the term "marriage equality," I mean equal TREATMENT under the law. I'm not going to quibble over terminology. There is simply no Constitutional justification for denying Gay couples the exact same benefits and responsibilities that Straight couples have always taken for granted, even if under a different name.
But let's keep in mind, as Andrew Sullivan pointed out, "that the forces against marriage equality are also adamantly against civil unions for Gay people. And they have no intention of allowing Gay couples any civil recognition, because we are an emblem of sin to them."