Civil Unions Come Out of the Closet; The Goal is Same-Sex Marriage

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January 31, 2011

Civil Unions Come Out of the Closet; The Goal is Same-Sex Marriage

by Jenny Tyree

Here’s what you should know about civil union legislation: It is being introduced in several states as part of a strategy to redefine marriage.

Although it is often denied, a news release by the Illinois ACLU about recently-passed civil union legislation admits this, and also equates “full equality” with same-sex marriage.

Although the passage of civil union legislation represents an important step forward on the road toward full equality for LGBT individuals in Illinois, the ACLU continues to work to achieve the freedom to marry for all couples.

“We look forward to the day when Illinois joins other states across the nation by making marriage available for all Illinois citizens,” said Colleen Connell, executive director of the ACLU of Illinois. “This new law suggests that the day of complete fairness for lesbian and gay couples is not far away in the Land of Lincoln.”

In addition to this verbal acknowledgement that civil unions are a step toward the goal of same-sex marriage, there is the real evidence. Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire started with civil unions but now have same-sex marriage after the LGBT lobby declared civil unions to be inadequate.

Civil unions will never be enough for the LGBT lobby, and California is case in point. The California legislature passed multiple domestic partnership laws to give every right and responsibility of marriage to same-sex couples. Still, voters had to vote not once, but twice to defend marriage. Not even that was enough. Proposition 8 is on its way to the Supreme Court because the goal is redefining marriage for everyone.

Brian Raum, who helps defend one-man, one-woman marriage laws with the Alliance Defense Fund, shed more light on this tactic in a statement he gave to a Wyoming newspaper.

“Those who support the passage of a civil unions law –- even those here today -– will be the same individuals and organizations who will then say that civil union laws create second-class citizen status for same-sex couples,” Raum said. “And not only that -– that it creates a constitutional claim that requires, then, the state to redefine marriage through the court system.”

Make no mistake. Civil union legislation is not a good compromise for protecting marriage. Civil unions are only the bait required to get fair-minded people to take the hook. The big fish is same-sex marriage.

Sal

A Libertarians point of view, but not necessarily mine: Civil Unions should be the law of the land for anyone, period. Get the government out of marriage, they don’t belong there. Let churches marry whomever they choose.
- Jenny Tyree
  
  Sal,
  
  It’s true that the libertarian viewpoint is often favorable to civil unions, but often that viewpoint has not considered a few things. For one, marriage has always been treated as a civil institution, rather than religious, by our laws. The United States government doesn’t recognize the how or where of a wedding or a couple’s faith or non-faith, but it has always been vested in the result of that couple’s union: that a child born to them has both a mother and a father to care for him.
  
  The state is never more intrusive in individual lives as when a marriage breaks up or never happens, and when the state is that involved it’s at a cost that the libertarian taxpayer cannot ignore. One very low estimate of the cost of family fragmentation to taxpayers is $112 billion a year. You can read more about it here.
  
  Thanks for writing,
  
  Jenny
Mike

You make it sound like the connection between same sex marriage and civil unions was a secret at some point. It never was. Of course gay couples want to be afforded the same legal privileges as married straight couples. Legal marriage is the only way to do that. Even the best civil union legislation isn’t a 100% solution. The opponents of same sex marriage are welcome to keep working against it, but they might want to reconcile the eventuality of it in the backs of their minds.
- Jenny Tyree
  
  Mike,
  
  I think you’re right–that the goal of civil union legislation hasn’t been a real secret except perhaps to many supporters of one-man, one-woman marriage who thought that civil unions were possible ground for compromise. The examples in my blog post just make it easier to see that civil union legislation is part of the slippery slope toward a radical redefinition of marriage that will have consequences for every single American.
  
  Additionally, of course people who identify as lesbian or gay already have the same legal privileges as everyone else–the law requires the same of men and women who want to marry. Proponents of same-sex marriage should admit that the redefinition they propose ignores the very reason we have marriage in the first place: children are born of heterosexual union. Redefining marriage in policy will have profound consequences for children who need the law to champion their need for both a mother and a father.
  
  Thanks for writing.
  
  Jenny
J Roberts, California

In response to: “A Libertarians point of view, but not necessarily mine: Civil Unions should be the law of the land for anyone, period. Get the government out of marriage, they don’t belong there. Let churches marry whomever they choose.”

That is not viable, because churches are not ALLOWED to marry whom they please. Neither are photographers able to choose whom they will do wedding pics for; Bakers cannot refuse wedding cakes based on choice without MAJOR suits from the aclu OR the state who has made LGBT a protected class.
Jehan

I note that my prior comment was not accepted. I will try again, since I feel that open debate should be a hallmark of Christian discussion.

Again, Jenny is incorrect – the law fundamentally discriminates: heterosexuals are permitted to marry the ones they love; homosexuals are not. Attempts to enshrine this prejudice into violate violate Christ’s most fundamental commandment, that we love one another.

As a Christian I am saddened by this heartless violation of God’s commandments.
- Jenny Tyree
  
  Jehan,
  
  Not posting your comment was a reflection of time constraints rather than an unwillingness to post. Thanks for taking the time to submit your comment again, and for giving me a second chance to respond.
  
  It seems to me that we likely disagree on much more than the definition of marriage. You are asserting an argument from Scripture based on Jesus Christ’s command that Christians are to love one another, while at the same time rejecting Christ’s definition of marriage in the New Testament book of Matthew chapter 19, verses 4 and 5. He quotes the Genesis account of God’s design for marriage.
  
  “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?“(NIV)
  
  You further suggest that supporting a one-man, one-woman definition of marriage is a “heartless violation of God’s commandments,” however, I would say, in response, that it is heartless to promote a redefinition of marriage that would result in the intentional removal of children from their mother and father. Furthermore, biology attempts to give a mother and father to every child, and our human social sciences say that children need both for their best chance to thrive.
  
  I am not a theologian, but if you are interested, you might check out Robert A. Gagnon’s website for a more thorough explanation of this biblical position of sexuality and marriage.
  
  Thanks, again, for writing.
  
  Jenny