TWO MAGGIE ASIDES: Maggie Gallagher

Not to distract from the mainline of debate. But must correct the Village Voice story in which an HRC spokesman says some states make cohabitors "married" against there will. Nope. Confusing "common-law marriage" and "cohabitation" is on the same order as confusing "civil unions" and "civil marriage."

Common-law marriage states required cohabitors to hold themselves out to the community as a married couple (e.g. "Mr. and Mrs.", filing joint tax returns, etc.) and to maintain this public facade of marriage for 7 years. Just living together never made you married in the U.S. (Canada however has given up on consent as a condition to marriage). I personally believe that common-law marriage has deep roots in Catholic marriage tradition, which holds that consent to marriage and consummation constitute the essence of a valid marriage. (For the last five hundred years the Church has required a witness from the clergy--not to perform but to witness the vows of the couple which create the marriage). Basically if a couple claimed to be married and lived as if married, after 7 years the state gave up and said "well, I guess you married each other."

But the couple themselves had to indicate by their public professions that they considered themselves married.

On the latest Canadian poll: I think it is probably overstating the case (and possibly deceptive) to say that support for SSM has "dropped" to 31 percent. Nonetheless it is striking and fair to say that in Canada after more than a year of intense public debate and a court ruling ordering gay marriage, less than one-third of Canadians support this option, if given the alternative of a "civil union"-like status.


posted by maggie at 7:23 PM VOTE

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home