A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage

[Big_Mike]

From the NY Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/opinion/22rauch.html?em>

"IN politics, as in marriage, moments come along when sensitive compromise can avert a major conflict down the road. The two of us believe that the issue of same-sex marriage has reached such a point now.

We take very different positions on gay marriage. We have had heated debates on the subject. Nonetheless, we agree that the time is ripe for a deal that could give each side what it most needs in the short run, while moving the debate onto a healthier, calmer track in the years ahead.

It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill."

What is the general thought about David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch's NYT Op-Ed? I am a Cali resident, and where I live was purely 50-50 on Prop 8. I'm straight, and many of my neighbors who were against Prop 8 were strongly against the term "marriage" for GLBTs. They (mostly, there's always a few a**holes out there) had no problem with equal protections, they just wanted something other than Marriage to be involved.

Not too many flames, please. I honestly just want to know what the feelings are.

Big Mike

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I don't understand the "religious-conscience exceptions"

Does that mean that churches can discriminate against married gay couples? Does it mean that a religious realtor could deny them the right to buy a house, a religious health care provider could deny them health care?

[zipplewrath]

2. This makes no real sense

Churches already are allowed to discriminate. Catholics only let Catholics get married in their churches. They don't recognize civil divorce. Try going down to your local conservative synogoge and try getting married if you aren't conservative jewish. The only thing this proposal wants to accomplish is to allow churches to discriminate in their EMPLOYMENT. I'm afraid I cannot accept that. And honestly, I don't buy into the whole "separate but equal" stuff either. Either it's a marriage or it isn't. If you try to create a distinction, someone will try to ensure that there is a difference. There's a couple of hundred of years of case law about marriage and all of that should apply. The gay community shouldn't have to re-argue all of that case law.