New Hampshire and Civil Unions
New Hampshire - however coincidentally - is following my lead.
The state should have nothing to do with marriage whatsoever beyond the simple recognition of the creation of a partnership. The actual ceremony and 'significance' of the marriage to the individuals are private matters, really; all the government cares about is whether they're getting joint or separate tax returns and how much of the estate they get. On that basis, same-sex marriage between consenting adults (at whatever age the state defines that) is as equally valid as marriage between two heterosexual consenting adults.Imagine my pleasure when I saw this article in the Union Leader today! State Senator Bob Clegg (R-Hudson), former Senate Majority Leader and strong conservative, has proposed legislation that would, among other things, do the following:
Under his bill, two adults could go to a Justice of the Peace and affirm their decision to enter into a contract. The contract would be filed with the Secretary of State as are marriage licenses. Dissolving the unions would be similar to a divorce with the parties responsible financially for dependent children.At first glance, this bill seems to be precisely what I've been advocating for, doesn't it? Let's hope it's the real deal and let's hope it passes. What makes me even more optimistic about the bill's chances are these three crucial facts:
- The bill was offered by a conservative Republican. There will be no talk - hopefully - of how this is a Loony-Left conspiracy to overthrow heterosexuality.
- The bill was not forced upon us by an overly assertive judiciary. This has served as the death knell for similiar proposals in many states.
- This is New Hampshire! Live Free or Die!
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posted by Joshua @ 9:29 AM
2 Comments:
Excellent news indeed. My main concern is that most of the opponents of legally recognized same-sex unions (whether called contracts, civil unions, or marriage) will likely not be swayed by your central argument that the State's role in marriage should be entirely and exclusively structural. While it is satisfying for us to laugh at the idea of people thinking that gay unions somehow destroying heterosexual marriages, this is probably straw manning. I would think that many people who speak about the "sanctity of marriage" are more interested in the (important) symbolic value of having the state sanction marriage, not just as an economic partnership with certain legal implications, but as a fundamentally recognized cultural institution. Thus, these same people would be unlikely to support the conceptual severance you want to effect between between unions as a legal entity and marriage as a cultural and/or religious institution. They would argue that it is precisely because marriage is a central cultural institution, that it needs to be recognized not just by the legal mechanisms of legislation, but by the policy priorities which such legislation represents.
Now, I'm about as secular as they come, so I'm sure I have not articulated this viewpoint very well. I've found myself somewhat perplexed in many case by the need of lawmakers (and judges) to bend over backwards to maintain the illusion that what they are doing is really 100% consistent with tradition and "how we've always done it." Marriage has more historical baggage than any area of the law, which seems to make it difficult for people to attempt rational reinterpretation of our laws concerning it in light of contemporary understanding.
In fact, as I'm sure Tacitean would agree, having the state perform its legal functions only, with respect to marriage, and leaving the other social and cultural aspects of it to private society is about as perfect a model of the conservative ethos as you can get. The impulse behind (real) conservativism seems to be that there is a robust and parallel system of private culture and society alongside the public sphere and that this private cultural sphere can be trusted to serve many of the needs that we seem to have devolved to the state. And I say devolved because the underlying assumption must (and should) be that the powers of the government are delegated to it from the people and not the other way around.
So I applaud Senator Clegg's effort insofar as it might be a step towards a more rational separation of the cultural and legal dimensions of marriage. This will give gay couples their well deserved chance to enjoy the same legal benefits as heterosexual couples. I worry, however, that this conceptual split will be applied only as a sort of legal patch to grant gays equal legal benefits without carrying the reasoning which underlies it to its logical conclusion. That is, under this bill as I understand it, heterosexual couples could choose legal "marriage" as it is now, OR a more secular "contract" with the same legal ramifications. Gay couples would be limited to the latter. If the idea is that the state's role in marriage should be a purely legal one, then why not have a single type of union for everyone, and let the various cultural organizations (churches etc.) work out how they want to marry people?
I for one have wanted the government to get out of the marriage business for some time now. Let the government handle the legal aspects of two people coming together in material union, and let each couple determine what a "marriage" means to them.
We already have steps in that direction. When we were getting ready to marry this summer, we did not go to the church for a license. We went to the Fayette County Magistrate Court. There the clerk verified our identities and registered our birthdates, birthplaces, and parents' names, their birthdates, and their birthplaces. The only vaguely cultural element was the form our minister signed verifying that we had undergone premarital counseling. (In Georgia, you can pay either $61 for a license without counseling, or you can pay $26 -- in cash -- after 6 hours of counseling by a clergymember or therapist).
I would hope that a change in the nomenclature would ease some of the fears over gay marriage. It leaves the decision over whether or not to marry gays to the religious or cultural group performing the actual ceremony, but still allows all of the legal benefits to the couple. Let the states recognize civil unions for all couples, and let marriages occur under the eye of God (or gods).
I also like that Clegg's bill clearly stipulates what pairs of people are eligible for such a contract, eliminating fears of the "slippery slope" into bestiality and polygamy. Of course, I can't help but wonder about the seemingly arbitrary nature of the number 2 for such unions...
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