Civil union vs. marriage

Context

Civil unions have been used to confer some or all of the legal rights attached to traditional marriage but without the historical and religious implications. Marriage is typically associated with religious tradition and historical authority, e.g., the married couple has God's blessing. According to one source, civil unions in the U.S. are recognized by Hawaii and Illinois. Another source says eight states recognize civil unions. In a marriage there are, among other things, federal tax consequences, rights associated with inheritance and rights associated with custody of children. In addition, under some circumstances, decision making and visitation authority attaches to a spouse when the other spouse is incapacitated.

Bog plants - Venus fly traps

In states where same-sex couples are in a committed relationship but civil unions are not recognized, few or none of the rights associated with marriage exist between the people in the relationship. Thus, if one person in a committed same-sex relationship dies, the other may not inherit from the other. A surviving same-sex partner may not have any child custody rights, regardless of the reality of the situation, e.g., the child loves the surviving partner as a true parent.

California Moderates (CM) has argued on occasion that religion is not a good source of authority for political policy or law. Religion does seem to serve an apparent and common human need for spirituality and in that role, it is fine. That common need appears to have existed in prehistoric humans and maybe in pre-human species. The need for spirituality appears to have evolved with the evolution of the human brain. Despite the need, CM is aware of no universally-accepted scientific proof that any supernatural aspect of any religion is literally true. Such a proof is beyond the capacity of human science and thus belief in those things is a matter of personal spiritual faith. That difference between science and religion is profound and fundamental. Science and religion simply are not the same, regardless of how hard some religious people sometimes try to deny that basic distinction. 

Venus fly traps

When people who want more religion in politics invoke the founding fathers as an authority, that source is nearly always the Declaration of Independence. It invokes God as a source of authority for what the founding fathers did. The word God (or religion, church, sin, Satan, hell, immoral, morality or moral) does not appear even once in the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution invokes "We the people", not God, as its source of authority. The word religious appears once in the constitution in the Article VI clause "but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States". The word religion appears once in the Bill of Rights in the phrase "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." U.S. courts rely on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, not the Declaration of Independence or the Bible or the Quran, as the final and highest sources of authority for the law.

Bog plants - bug digesting pitcher plants

On Tuesday, May 8, 2012, the state of North Carolina passed a state ban on both same sex marriage and civil unions. The ban was in the state's constitution. Many other states have similar laws on their books. On May 9, 2012, President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage. Mitt Romney has opposed same sex marriage for a long time and advocates for an amendment to the U.S. constitution to define marriage as a union between a woman a man. If Mr. Romney becomes president and is somehow able to get that constitutional amendment to become part of the U.S. constitution, that would be the first time since the Bill of Rights was passed in 1789 that a constitutional amendment explicitly favoring or protecting any religion would have been added to the constitution.

Pitcher plant with some bog flowers of some sort or another

Unconstitutional and cruel or an admirable 

defense of an admirable status quo?

Given that context, one can reasonably ask if it is constitutional to confer, e.g., federal tax differences or rights of inheritance, on a legally recognized opposite-sex marriage while not allowing the same rights for same-sex or opposite-sex couples who do not want to be married in a religious ceremony. By what constitutional authority can that be defended? The answer is clear. There is no constitutional authority for that difference. Religion is the authority.

Is it humane and caring to confer no rights in a partner in a long-term committed relationship when the other partner is incapacitated? Is it good, solid family values to take a child away from a same-sex parent after the other partner dies? Is that kind of cruelty really what God would want? Or, is that not cruel? Or, do things like that not happen?

Finally, for taxpayers, is it reasonable to allow tax differences between marriage and civil unions? If so, why? If such differences should exist, then why not confer advantages on the civil union because the civil union derives its source of authority from the constitution, which is the highest source of authority? Is there any constitutional authority to prohibit a civil union in any state? Is this a matter of state law or federal constitutional law?

Romney probably has it right that this is a federal concern and not a state issue. One can easily criticize the wisdom of his proposed constitutional amendment. Once again, religion shows itself to be a poor source of authority for secular law under a secular constitution, especially when he opposes equal rights for civil unions. It would be of much interest to hear him explain why a religious marriage should be "better" or even different from a mere civil union performed under the authority of the U.S. constitution. A reasonable guess is that he has no explanation other than something sort of like, "well, that's just the way it ought to be because God is great and the constitution isn't." Of course, that's just idle speculation. No one really knows what Mr. Romney might blurt out when pressed for an answer to that interesting question.

A fair counterpoint

A reasonable argument to not require religious organizations to do same-sex marriages is that that could contradict sacred teachings according to the beliefs of a given church or organization. That's a fair point. For the most part and within reason, religions do not have to concede any point of doctrine to any U.S. government entity. The constitution insures that protection. On the other hand, American taxpayers have been subsidizing religion in the U.S. for over a century (arguably since the get go) in the form of tax breaks for their operations.

Reasonable give and take or 

just greedy take and take?

Nothing in the constitution compels that kind of generosity toward religion. Its a gift given as a simple act of honest generosity each year. Taxpayers probably give religion tens of billions in tax subsidies and other support each year, maybe much more.* Its not as if religion isn't highly protected and pampered in the U.S. Asking for one doctrine or practice concession is reasonably characterized as a tiny thing in return for the staggering support the constitution and taxpayers afford religion. The constitution takes great pain to accommodate religion. What pain does religion take to accommodate the constitution? Is religion being selfish, arrogant and uncaring?

 A bog bunny living amongst the bog plants

* Don't forget, if federal tax dollars for Planned Parenthood (PP) are fungible as many (most?) religious people argue when they advocate cutting off federal PP funding, then tax dollars are obviously just as fungible for religious organizations and they should be cut off for exactly the same reason. Fund them all or fund none. And, if one wants to really parse it on constitutional grounds, fund PP and cut off funds for faith based organizations because money to both is fungible (thus tax dollars improperly support religion), abortion is legal and PP is secular. The logic is simple and clear.

Theocracy, secular or something else?

A fair question is whether America should be a theocracy guided by perfect, infallible religious authority, a secular nation guided by a flawed human constitution or some combination of the two. If religion is to be injected into the mix, why should that be the case and where, if anywhere, would be the logical limit for what is injected and what isn't? That's the old slippery slope argument.

From the CM point of view, there is only one reasonable, logical choice for all of these questions. However, all of these are things that each American needs to decide on their own. In deciding, don't ignore the context. Have the moral courage to (i) try to find unspun reality and then (ii) face reality for what it is before deciding. If you think that the context (reality) given here is spin, by all means go out and find a reality you believe isn't spin. It should be easy to do that. In the process of finding an acceptable reality, try the fun exercise of showing the fatal flaws or spin in the reality described here. Bet you can't.