After New York Times columnist Frank Rich questioned his work and linked him to a notorious anti-gay figure in three columns this past spring, David Blankenhorn had had enough.

The founder and president of the Institute for American Values (IAV) recruited 13 college professors to attest to his credentials in a 12-page letter he sent to the Times asking the paper’s public editor to weigh if Rich’s columns were “consistent with the Times’ standards.”

Among the 13 were two University of Minnesota professors who support gay marriage, including Dale Carpenter, who is openly gay. Another gay marriage supporter from the Brookings Institution, a think tank, signed on as well.

While Blankenhorn backed civil unions for gay and lesbian couples in 2007, he gained greater attention this year when he testified in favor of Prop 8 during the federal trial over that 2008 amendment to California’s constitution that banned same-sex marriage. That more public stance has cost him.

“I’m losing friends, being told I’m on the wrong side of history, I’m like Bull Connor,” he said, referring to the top Birmingham, Alabama law enforcement official who in the 1960s used police dogs and fire hoses to attack pro-integration protesters. Blankenhorn has been mocked in the gay blogosphere. ...

In Blankenhorn’s view, the gay marriage debate shows “goods in conflict.” Same-sex couples and their children would benefit from marriage, but this beneficial institution could be harmed by admitting them, he said. He opts to exclude gay and lesbian couples from marriage while creating a parallel framework that has many of the same benefits.

In a sharply divided debate, Blankenhorn is still searching for a third way. He and Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at Brookings, have convened a series of meetings with 20 peers titled “Achieving Disagreement” that they hope will produce a document that will define the debate.

Labels: civil unions, culture, David Blankenhorn, gay marriage, Jonathan Rauch

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In vetoing Hawaii’s civil unions bill, Gov. Linda Lingle noted that the bill was “essentially marriage by another name.” ...

Like most civil-unions legislation, this bill was an attempt to grant marital rights and responsibilities without using the “M word”—a compromise that, for whatever strange reason, satisfies many opponents of marriage equality. Polls across the country show substantially greater support for civil unions than for marriage equality, even when the statewide rights and responsibilities would be legally identical in theory. ...

Okay, but suppose we grant identical legal boundaries to the relationship. Wouldn’t it then be a marriage, legally speaking?

Here’s where marriage-equality opponents get pushed into a corner. If they answer “yes,” they have to give up the argument that legal same-sex marriage is impossible by definition. If they answer “no,” they find themselves saying that a legally identical relationship isn’t legally identical.

The only way out of this logical pretzel is to distinguish between two senses of “marriage”—a legal sense, the boundaries of which are drawn however the law says they’re drawn, and a religious or metaphysical sense, the boundaries of which exist independently of human intentions.

The religious/metaphysical sense is surely what people have in mind when they say that same-sex marriage is impossible by definition. But the law isn’t—or shouldn’t be—in the business of religion or metaphysics. It should be concerned with the legal boundaries, period.

Labels: civil unions, culture, gay marriage, Hawaii, John Corvino, Marriage

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A heterosexual Austrian couple have embarked on a court battle to have their relationship legally recognised as a "registered partnership" - a new form of civil union for same-sex couples.

Helga Ratzenboeck and Martin Seydl say they don't want a traditional marriage and insist that the law should be blind to gender and sexuality.

Meanwhile, the kind of pared-down marriage they want is proving a huge hit with straight couples in France, where 95% of couples taking up the pacte civil de solidarite (Pacs) in 2009 were heterosexual.

As the number of straight French couples opting for Pacs has grown, the number of marriages has shrunk, to the point that there are now two couples entering into a Pacs for every three getting married.

'A little bit equal'

In both Austria and France, some gay couples are fighting for the right to full marriage. Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Norway are currently the only European countries allowing same-sex marriages. ...

Austria is the eighth EU country to have introduced partnerships for same-sex couples. They are very similar, but not the same as marriage. The others are Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary and Slovenia.

Austria's "registered partnerships" do not bring adoption rights or access to fertility treatment, but despite more than 70 differences, gay and lesbian groups tended to see their introduction on 1 January as significant progress for a conservative, Catholic country.

Some, like Kurt Krickler of Viennese gay rights group HOSI, were pleasantly surprised at how far the partnerships went. Particularly surprising, he says, is that that it offers non-Austrian partners a right to work in Austria, where fears about immigration run very high.

Supporters cite a number of reasons why registered partnerships are better than marriages. Dissolving a marriage can take up to six years, while for registered partnerships it takes three at most. The law also puts more emphasis on openness and honesty than on strict sexual fidelity.

Labels: adultery, Austria, civil unions, culture, discrimination law, divorce, Europe, France, gay marriage, heterosexual couples, Marriage

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Debra H. is the mother of her six-year-old son, a child she raised with Janice R,. her ex-partner who is the child's biological mother. So ruled the New York Court of Appeals today (and that's the highest court in NY, so their decision is final). For that reason, press reports, at least the early ones, refer to the opinion as expanding the rights of gay parents.

Not so fast. What the court actually did was limit the rights of children of same-sex couples to a relationship with only one parent, unless the parents married each other (or entered a civil union or a domestic partnership comferring all the rights of marriage) or completed a second-parent adoption. (Debra H. and Janice R. were in a Vermont civil union.) This is not good news. Children are not supposed to suffer for the decision of their parents not to marry. That has been an elemental principle of family law for more than four decades. Yet suffer they will, those New York children, because apparently that principle goes out the window when it comes to lesbian couples raising children.

New York is not an isolated case. In Massachusetts, where same-sex couples have been allowed to marry for six years, a child born to a married lesbian couple is the child of both parents, but a child born to an unmarried couple, under identical circumstances (such as conception using an unknown donor) has only one parent, unless the nonbiological parent completes a second-parent adoption. Such adoptions take time and money, both often in short supply. (In a New Jersey cases a few years back, the couple made the economically sensible decision to have their second child and then go through one adoption proceeding for both of them. Unfortunately, the nonbio mom died unexpectedly before any adoption took place, and the child was unable to collect social security survivors benefits because under the law he had only one parent.) I have said repeatedly (and it's the title of my new Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties article), A Mother Should Not Have to Adopt Her Own Child.

Labels: civil unions, custody, de facto parenting, gay couples, gay marriage, gay parenting, Massachusetts, New York

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English law no longer has a clear concept of marriage, a leading family lawyer has said.

Baroness Deech, the chairman of the Bar Standards Board, also believes that human rights law could soon be used to legalise full homosexual marriage.

She said the traditional Christian image of a lifelong union of man and woman is no longer accurate because of the changing nature of relationships and the introduction of legal rights for same-sex couples.

Lady Deech said she believes that human rights law may soon rule that it is discriminatory to ban homosexuals from marrying in the same way that heterosexual couples do.

But she added that some differences between civil partnerships and marriages should be preserved, and criticised recent Labour laws that allow same-sex couples to be named on birth certificates with no mention of a father.

Labels: civil unions, Fathers, gay marriage, gender, Marriage, United Kingdom

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Baroness Deech, the chairman of the Bar Standards Board, claims that traditional Christian image of a lifelong union of man and woman is no longer accurate because of the changing nature of relationships and the introduction of legal rights for same-sex couples.

She believes human rights law may soon rule that it is discriminatory to ban homosexuals from marrying in the same way that heterosexual couples do.

However Lady Deech adds that some differences between civil partnerships and marriages should be preserved, and criticises recent Labour laws that allow same-sex couples to be named on birth certificates with no mention of a father. ...

But she will conclude that “civil partnerships do still differ from marriage a little, and this is an area where the difference ought to be preserved with justification”.

This is because she disagrees with provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, which allow same-sex couples to be named as parents on birth certificates with no reference to a father.

Labels: civil unions, donor conception, Fathers, gay marriage, gay parenting, United Kingdom

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Labels: beyond marriage, civil unions

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New Hampshire performed its first gay marriages this past week. New Jersey lawmakers vote on gay marriage today. Even so, advocates are shifting strategy to focus on having same-sex relationships legally recognized in other forms.

The reason: Despite those victories for gay rights, the end of 2009 saw momentum on the marriage issue stall.

Two states rejected same-sex marriage, reflecting the fact that most Americans do not support it, says John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron. No other state is actively considering legislation.

As a result, Green says, advocates will push for states to grant civil unions or domestic partnerships, which allow similar rights to those of married couples. Americans are more likely to support those relationships, he says.

An August survey by the Pew Research Center found that 53% of Americans oppose allowing gay men and lesbians to marry legally, but 57% favor allowing them to enter into civil unions, arrangements that give them many of the same rights.

"By picking away a little bit by little bit, advocates hope to create a trend and shift public opinion, as people see it's not as pernicious as they may have thought," Green says. "The ultimate goal is same-sex marriage."

Labels: civil unions, culture, domestic partnership, gay marriage

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Today Lambda Legal announced plans to go back to court to seek marriage equality after the New Jersey Senate failed to pass a marriage bill, effectively ending hope for passage this session.

"The requirement to ensure equality for same-sex couples, established by the New Jersey Supreme Court in its decision in our marriage lawsuit in 2006, has not been met," said Kevin Cathcart, Executive Director at Lambda Legal. "There is enormous, heartbreaking evidence that civil unions are not equal to marriage, and we will be going back to the courts in New Jersey to fight for equality. Too many families are at risk. We cannot wait any longer."

Labels: civil unions, gay marriage, New Jersey

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Leland Traiman, who runs a sperm bank in California, worries about his lesbian clients in more conservative parts of the country when he hears fellow gay rights activists talk about winning the right to wed.

With 34 states lacking any legal recognition of same-sex relationships, Traiman wonders if all the emphasis on matrimony is misplaced.

"When I speak to women from Florida or Wisconsin or Minnesota, they are like, 'I don't care what it's called, I just want to be able to visit my wife in the hospital and cover my children with my health insurance,'" said Traiman, who helped pass the nation's first domestic partnership law a quarter-century ago in Berkeley. ...

Activists like Traiman point to the success of efforts to extend spousal rights and other civil rights protections to same-sex couples, even as the passage of gay marriage bans grab headlines.

On the same day that Maine rejected a gay marriage law approved by its Legislature, for example, voters in Washington state approved a law giving same-sex couples or straight older couples who register as domestic partners all the state rights and responsibilities of marriage. Washington's so-called "everything but marriage" law passed by the same margin as Maine's gay marriage rebuff, 53 percent to 48 percent. ...

This month, more than 150 Christian conservative leaders published a 4,700-word declaration, pledging to fight any legislative efforts to equate same-sex unions with traditional marriages. In theory, though, the Manhattan Declaration would not oppose extending legal protections to two people in a nonsexual relationship, such as two sisters or even a same-sex couple that abstained from sex, said Robert George, a Princeton law professor who serves as board chairman of the National Organization for Marriage.

"What you couldn't have is ... an explicit reference to partners in intimate relationships because 'intimate' is an euphemism for 'sexual,'" George said. "In that case, all a civil union scheme is a semantic substitute for marriage, or same-sex marriage by another name."

Labels: civil unions, culture, domestic partnership, gay marriage

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Very quietly – and with little fanfare – same-sex Vermonters have begun filling out the necessary paperwork to get married next month.

Vermont town clerks began offering civil marriage license applications to same-sex couples this month as the Sept. 1 start of the state's new law allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry draws near. ...

So far, very few same-sex couples in Vermont seem to be lining up to get the applications, although more than two weeks remains in the month before the start of the new law. ...

In Montpelier, the state capital of 8,000 where supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage battled just months ago, no gay or lesbian couples have yet to ask for a civil marriage license application, according to City Clerk Charlotte Hoyt.

Labels: civil unions, gay marriage, Vermont

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Jon Rowe argues against both me and Robert P. George in favor of a libertarian position in which no-one gets married but civil unions are available for all. I sure understand the theoretical reasoning for this, but I have two objections.

The first is simply that there are some minimal tangible social goods associated with marriage that I believe would be enormously beneficial for gays and straights: the institution encourages stability and commitment in an emotional and sexual world which often pulls us away from that. It encourages shared sacrifice; it instills the disciplines of shared living; it promotes thrift; it integrates gay people into their own families and society; it harms no-one. In that sense I'm a weak libertarian, believing in a minimal state that can nonetheless encourage core shared values and social goods and treats the equal inclusion of minorities as something worth sacrificing for. That's the social conservative side of marriage equality - and the evolution of gay culture even in the past decade shows how that could occur, especially as the first generation of gay kids grows up knowing in advance that marriage is an option.

In fact, a great deal of this symbolism has to do with gay kids more than adults.

Labels: adolescence, childhood, civil unions, gay marriage, government interest in marriage, Marriage

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A study to be published by Columbia University will examine how a state’s percentage of Catholic residents affects its opinion of gay marriage.

A similar survey by Mark Silk of the blog Spiritual Politics suggests that in issues related to marriage, adoption and civil unions, a conservative majority would win. However, when presented with issues concerning hate crimes, health benefits and job protection, research shows Catholics typically sympathize with civil rights causes despite guidelines passed down from Vatican City.

Labels: adoption, Catholic Church, civil unions, gay marriage, homosexuality, religion

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...For example, from the point of view of Church, a proper family must have a marriage in it – as I have just said, we have had this repeated over and over. As I have said elsewhere, I am more interested these days in the concept of the sacrament of relationships, rather than merely marriage, but this is certainly a bridge too far for our own Church. So, we do get a clear idea from Church, even if we don’t subscribe to it, of what family is, or isn’t!

The State is much more open to other forms and is perhaps driven by other considerations, not least the views of the electorate. But it is ironic that the State appears to be much more pastoral and compassionate in its acceptance of what family is. The fact that there are all kinds of benefits available for different family forms, and legal imperatives to support families suggests that the State is even more concerned for families than Church. ...

The cohabitation of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s bears no resemblance, other than in purely external form, to the current cohabitation of hetersexuals. Where wedding ring and suburban housing once were consequences of marriage, the modern day wedding ring is a mortgage, children, and a personal and private decision to be together. Duncan Dormor writes well on this phenomenon in his book, Just Cohabiting, where he suggests that modern cohabitation is akin to Mediaeval betrothal.

Add to this the increasing openness, and tolerance, of same-sex unions and the picture of today’s family society starts to come into focus. The Civil Partnerships legislation in this country was somewhat ground-breaking in giving gays and lesbians similar legal rights to heterosexual partnership. The real consequence of this is the legal acceptance, and partial social acceptance, of this family form.

We know, nevertheless, that there are many who are outrightly opposed to same-sex unions having any legal status. Our own Church is particularly active in some areas on this front, perhaps missing the point that when we look at intimate relationships, we should be less concerned, as Church, with the purely civil, and focus on sacrament that is more about the expression of the presence of God mediated through commitment, consent and covenant. Where this exists in married couples, in cohabiting heterosexual couples and same-sex couples, there is sacrament, I believe.

Labels: Catholic Church, civil unions, cohabitation, gay marriage, marriage counseling, religion, United Kingdom

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Support for same-sex marriage has declined slightly from two months ago, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds.

On other issues that have come before the Supreme Court -- namely, affirmative action and abortion -- Americans' opinions have remained relatively stable for years, according to the poll, conducted June 12 - 16.

Most Americans support some legal recognition of a same-sex couple’s relationship. The poll found 33 percent favor marriage for same-sex couples, down somewhat from a high of 42 percent in April, and another 30 percent support civil unions. A third of Americans think there should be no legal recognition of a same-sex couple’s
relationship. Views in this poll are similar to those found back in March of this year.

Labels: civil unions, culture, gay marriage

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With comparatively little notice, on May 30 and 31, Nevada’s legislature overrode Governor Jim Gibbons’s veto of a new Domestic Partnership Act (Senate Bill 283). Several features of this Act warrant comment. First, the legislature passed it mindful of Nevada’s constitutional amendment (approved by voters in 2002) providing: “Only a marriage between a male and a female person shall be recognized and given effect in this state.” Thus, the Act states: “A domestic partnership is not a marriage for the purposes of . . . the Nevada Constitution.” But marriage is the clear reference point for the “social contract” between domestic partners. The Act provides them “the same rights, protections and benefits” and subjects them to “the same responsibilities, obligations and duties” under law as spouses, former spouses, and surviving spouses, with some exceptions (such as employers providing health care to partners). The law of marriage supplies the substance of this new status.

But entering this new status is – as with other state domestic partnership laws – different than entering marriage. Persons seeking to register as domestic partners must file a statement declaring that they “have chosen to share one another’s lives in an intimate and committed relationship of mutual caring.” They must share a “common residence.” However, by contrast to some state laws, persons in Nevada need not declare their intention to be financially responsible for each other. The Act itself, by referencing the rights and responsibilities of marriage, will impose on domestic partners –as on spouses – a duty of mutual support.

Second, Nevada’s new law is available both to same-sex and opposite-sex couples. ... Like others, I have argued that creating a new civil status alternative to civil marriage might provide a good option for heterosexual couples who resist marriage either because of its historical association with sex inequality or its religious connotations. Will any opposite-sex couples in Nevada choose this new status? Will critics charge that the Act weakens marriage precisely because it provides this alternative? ...

In sum, the Nevada Domestic Partnership Act illustrates how a state legislature constrained by such a constitutional amendment may find a way to maneuver to create a new legal status to support and recognize intimate relationships other than civil marriage. It changes yet again the landscape in the United States with respect to the recognition and support of intimate relationships.

Labels: civil unions, equality, heterosexual couples, marriage amendments, Nevada

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A top constitutional law professor who served as a surrogate for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama told CNSNews.com that he would like to see “marriage” replaced in the legal sense with a neutral “civil license.”

“As awkward as it may be, I think the way to untie the state from this problem is to create a new terminology that they would apply to everyone--straight or gay--call it a ‘civil license,’ said Douglas Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University and author of “Can a Catholic Support Him?’

“The net effect of that, would be to turn over--quite appropriately, it seems to me, the concept of marriage to churches and a church understanding,” Kmiec said.

Kmiec said that one of the things that motivated the passage of California’s Proposition 8, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman, “was a genuine concern on the part of religious believers--including myself--that the previous California ruling was not addressing what that would mean for religious practice.”

“After the state of California acknowledged same-sex marriage, would that mean, for example, that churches like the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church, which don’t acknowledge those relationships as a marriage by virtue of their scriptural and theological teaching--would they be subject to penalty? Would they lose public benefits? Would they be subject to lawsuits based upon some theory of discrimination?” Kmiec said his idea would address those questions.

“One of the possible outcomes that would be good in this case, would be if the state got out of the marriage business, did their licensing under a different name--which, of course, would satisfy the state’s interests for purposes of distribution of taxation and
property, but then the question of who can and cannot be married would be entirely determined in your voluntarily chosen faith community.

“We know that religions differ as to how they see that question,” Kmiec said. “But it
seems to me that would be a nice way to reaffirm the significance of marriage as a religious concept--because that is a much fuller concept than just civil marriage.” ...

But Princeton University law professor Robert George, who is also a top constitutional scholar--and a Catholic academic--said that Kmiec’s idea would do away with the public role of marriage--and banish it to the religious “ghetto.”

Labels: beyond marriage, civil unions, gay marriage, government interest in marriage, Marriage, religion, religious liberty

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Given three choices, 41 percent of New York State voters say gay couples should be allowed to marry legally, while 33 percent say they should be allowed to form civil unions, but not marry and 19 percent say there should be no legal recognition of a gay union.

Among Republicans, 26 percent support gay marriage, with 36 percent for civil unions and 28 percent for no recognition.

Democrats go 49 percent for gay marriage, 29 percent for civil unions and 17 percent for no recognition.

Independent voters go 41 percent for gay marriage, 40 percent for civil unions and 14 percent for no recognition.

"The word among politicians is that gay marriage might pass this year. Voters split three ways, as they have for some time. Divided three ways, the gay marriage option tops the list. But if it's yes or no, where do those backers of civil unions line up?" Carroll asked.

Labels: civil unions, gay marriage, New York

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From California to Maine, Catholic bishops are increasingly taking on public roles on behalf of what LGBT activists call a "politicized" U.S. Catholic Church. Aiding the faith leaders in their campaign against same-sex marriage is the Knights of Columbus, a tax-exempt fraternal beneficiary society known as the church's "strong right arm."

And nowhere is the full impact of the Knights of Columbus' efforts felt than in the fight against awarding same-sex couples marriage rights.

In what turned out to be the largest total contribution from a single organization, $1.4 million of the Yes on 8 campaign's coffers came from the tax-exempt Knights of Columbus, based in New Haven, Connecticut. The Catholic Church operates its legislative efforts through the little understood entity, of which nearly all Catholic bishops and priests are members.

But the church's involvement in repealing same-sex marriage rights in California has been largely obscured by the intense public and media attention Mormon leaders received last year for their efforts to pass Proposition 8. After voters passed the anti-same-sex marriage constitutional amendment in November, LGBT protesters rallied outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' temples throughout the state rather than Catholic churches. Campaign finance reports indicate that while California's Conference of Catholic Bishops, as an organization, did not contribute to Prop 8, money did come nationally from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which contributed $200,000 to the Yes on 8 campaign. The minuscule amount belies the fact that Catholic officials played just as a substantial role as their Mormon counterparts in the anti-gay campaign. ...

Harry Knox, the religion and faith program director for the Human Rights Campaign, said the community must engage in dialogue with representatives from the Knights of Columbus.

"The Knights of Columbus do a great deal of good in the name of Jesus Christ, but in this particular case, they were foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression," Knox told the B.A.R. , referring to its role in the Prop 8 campaign.

Knox noted that the Knights of Columbus "followed discredited leaders," including bishops and Pope Benedict XVI. "A pope who literally today said condoms don't help in control of AIDS," Knox said Tuesday, shortly after the pope's comments were released.

Catholic officials, however, have deliberately cloaked their actions in opposing marriage equality from public view.

Case in point, San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer, who quietly reached out last summer to Mormon leaders he had met while stationed in Salt Lake City to ask them to become involved in the Prop 8 campaign. It wasn't until after the election that the archbishop's letter surfaced. ...

A key component of the Catholic Church's strategy has been the Knights of Columbus.

Obscure Catholic group

On its Web site the group proclaims itself as "the strong right arm of the Catholic Church."

To LGBT activist Jerry Sloan, the group is "an obscure and uniquely tax-exempt insurance company acting under the guise of a fraternal order."

Classified by a 19th century IRS code as a 501(c)8, the fraternal beneficiary society is able to operate as a tax-exempt organization providing "$70 billion in force" worth of life insurance to its members, according to Patrick Korten, vice president of communications and past grand knight of the organization.

According to the IRS Web site, a 501(c)8 is unlike other 501(c) nonprofit organizations. It is not required to abide by the non-discrimination clause required by Congress for other nonprofits. Rather, one IRS qualifier for the tax-exempt code states, "membership must be limited." Like the priesthood, the Knights of Columbus membership is restricted to Catholic men. Among those men are "almost every, if not all, bishops and most priests," explained Korten.

Besides providing life insurance to members, Korten told the B.A.R. that the purpose of the organization is to promote and lobby for the social issues important to the Catholic Church, including opposition to stem cell research, abortion, gay rights, and assisted suicide. ...

"I think it is fair to say the Knights of Columbus have been involved in virtually every one of the 31 states that have had referendums," on same-sex marriage, Korten said.

Korten also said the organization opposes civil unions.

"We support the church on that," Korten said. "And quite simply because the [heterosexual] family is the most important fundamental unit of society. A mother and a father is unquestionably the ideal. The purpose of the church is to provide the optimal environment in the begetting, raising, and education of children."

Labels: Catholic Church, civil unions, Proposition 8

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...Anderson and Girgis instead propose the following: “revisionists would agree to oppose the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), thus ensuring that federal law retains the traditional definition of marriage as the union of husband and wife …In return, traditionalists would agree to support federal civil unions offering most or all marital benefits.” But these unions “would be available to any two adults who commit to sharing domestic responsibilities, whether or not their relationship is sexual,” provided that they are “otherwise ineligible to marry each other.”

In other words, there would be federal civil unions for gays--but also for other domestic pairs: elderly widowed sisters, for example, or bachelor roommates.

At first glance, their claim that Rauch and Blankenhorn base their proposal on “the presumption that these relationships are or may be sexual” seems strange. After all, Rauch and Blankenhorn never mention sex, and the state neither knows nor cares (nor checks) whether people are having sex once they’re married or “civilly united.”

On the other hand, people generally assume (with good reason) that marriages and civil unions are sexual, or more broadly romantic. Romantic pair-bonding seems to be a fundamental human desire--for straights and gays--and part of what marriage does is to acknowledge pair-bonds. It does so not because the government is sentimental about such things, but because it recognizes the important role such bonds have in the lives of individuals and the community.

Anderson and Girgis are correct that there are other important bonds in society, and we may well want to extend more legal recognition to them. There is no reason that two cohabitating spinsters shouldn’t be granted mutual hospital visitation rights if they want them.

But the question remains whether we want to extend “most or all” federal marital benefits to any cohabitating couple otherwise ineligible to marry, as Anderson and Girgis propose.

And this question prompts additional ones: why limit such recognition to couples? Mutually interdependent relationships don’t only come in twos. Oddly, Anderson and Girgis seem to have more in common with radicals who seek to move “beyond marriage” than they do with anyone in the mainstream marriage debate.

Labels: beyond marriage, civil unions, David Blankenhorn, gay/straight differences, Jonathan Rauch, Ryan T. Anderson, Sherif Girgis

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