What am I missing?

[hrj]

The whole Prop 8 thing starts again tomorrow at the CA supreme court. So I'll indulge in just one related head-scratcher before returning to silent fuming and angsting. There's this one alleged "compromise position" that I regularly see people suggesting, apparently based on premise that people who oppose same-sex marriage (hereinafter abbreviated as SSM) are more hung-up on the "marriage" part than the "same-sex" part. That position is some variant on "we should cede ownership rights over the word 'marriage' to religious institutions: the state should perform only civil unions and only religious institutions should be able to create 'marriages'."

Setting aside the long prior history of persecution by the anti-SSM folks who now claim that it's only the use of the word 'marriage' that bothers them. Setting aside the curious absence of any history of these same people objecting to pairs of atheists or non-church-goers using the word 'marriage' for their civilly-sanctioned unions ... as long as it's an opposite-sex pair. Setting aside the question of how the government could cede ownership of the definition of a word to the class "religious institutions" without violating the establishment clause. Setting aside all other questions, I have to wonder whether the folks suggesting this "compromise" are stupid or disingenuous.

Has it not occurred to them that there are religious institutions that have no problems with blessing and solemnizing the unions of same-sex couples? And therefore that this "compromise" would not in the least satisfy the anti-SSM people because there would still be large numbers of same-sex couples who would "own" the label "married"?

Has it not occurred to them that this "compromise" would remove ownership of the label "married" from vast numbers of opposite-sex couples in state-sanctioned unions who chose not to involve a religious institution in that union? And that these two effects in combination, rather than decreasing the number of people unhappy with the state of affairs, would vastly increase that number?

Or do they think that somehow the category "religious institutions" to whom they want to cede ownership of the word 'marriage' would automagically be interpretable as "those religious institutions who would never ever actually apply the word marriage to same-sex couples"?

Am I missing something?

Comments

[scotica.livejournal.com]

Based on what I read of the ruling recognizing same sex marriages, I think there is a fifth possibility. The original ruling in almost so many words said "it doesn't have to be called marriage, but whatever it is called it must be called the same for opposite sex and same sex couples". So I think the court could decide "Okay, Prop. 8 means it can't be called 'marriage' -- civil unions for all!"

However, despite my preference for full separation of church and state and so civil unions for all from the state, due to other important legal ramifications, I'm hoping the court will rule that you can't take fundamental rights away from a minority, whether by simple majority or two-thirds or any other vote, and so Prop 8 is null and void and, well, unconstitutional. (Seriously, if 2/3s had voted to make it illegal for mixed race couples to marry, or for Chinese to marry at all, would that have made it okay? Can California pass an amendment tomorrow making it illegal for Hispanics, or Scientologists, or baseball players, to marry?)

[blaurentnv.livejournal.com]

Given the history of the California Constitution (for example, it made it illegal for Chinese to own property during its history), I believe that the examples you cite would qualify as a possible amendment to the California Constitution. I think it is just as absurd as prop. 8. I like the mixed race example - it wasn't long ago that many states did not allow mixed race marriages; if that hadn't changed, our current president's parents could not have married. Equal rights for any group has (historically) been a slow process - remember the "Equal Rights Amendment" never passed and equal pay for women just got enacted into law in this Congress.

Unfortunately, it seems we need to codify that any adults can marry and that race, religion, gender, felony convictions and/or anything else are not part of the consideration.