Washington State Voting

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I just received my voting pamplet. Currently up for vote in the state of WA is Referendum 71 which has been dubbed "Everything but Marriage". The intro paragraph states:

This bill would expand the rights, responsibilites, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage.

That is verbatim.

I find the idea ridiculous. I don't understand how people can apply so much signifigance to the word marriage. This law basically states that there will be no legal differences between a marriage relationship and a domestic partnership except in name. Doesn't the word lose its meaning/value if we can apply its definition to something deemed entirely seperate.

Thoughts?

(Just in case you were wondering, I am completely for equal rights across the board )

I'm happy I'm Oregon now....

People that defend 'marriage' defended it against inter-racial marriage and whatever else 'family values' are, like say ruin all other forms of family that don't fit into your narrow-minded thinking.

'Separate but equal' my honky ass.

A rose by any other name...

Yeah, it's nonsense. The end outcome of all of this is going to be that gay marriage will be universally legal and accepted. Those who oppose it are the same who opposed interracial marriage and school integration. They lost those fights, and they'll lose this one. I think the whole "domestic partnership" thing is mostly a ploy to stealth-legalize gay marriage while getting some accidental support from dim-witted conservatives who mistakenly believe they are "defending" marriage against gays. Morally and legally, drawing such a distinction (calling one "marriage" and the other "domestic partnership") is objectionable, but it gets the goals accomplished faster.

My home state not only outlaws gay marriage, but it actually refuses to recognize gay marriages performed in other states, despite the fact that all states are required by the Constitution to honor contracts made in another state.

Though I support gay marriage / equality, I was pleased to see this matter sent out for a vote (it was originally unilaterally enacted by our state legislature), and irritated at the tactics used by people who were opposed to putting it on the ballot, namely threatening to publish the names of anyone who signed the initiative to do so in an attempt to intimidate the voters. I'm more looking forward to Tim Eyeman's latest initiative that will severely limit the growth of local government by tying their budgets to inflation plus population growth, which of course is causing a screaming conniption fit among our local politicians. Anything to starve the beast is OK in my book, so I plan on voting early and often .

They all should be civil unions, a legal and binding partnership defined by contract law. Marriage is considered a religious term and should not be defined by the Government. The law should not be defined by some witch doctor performing a ritual followed by a wild party.

Oregon, I think you have a very valid point and a good idea. Let's just do that. Call 'em all "civil unions" (the government is, after all, merely regulating a contract between consenting adults) and leave "marriage" to the religious. However I also agree that the "seperate but equal" proposition in this particular bit of legislation is baloney and VERY reminiscent of segregation for African Americans. I'm insulted by the proposal. And I'd happily sign my name (first AND last) on a billboard if it would help homosexuals to be allowed to legalize their lifetime commitments to each other.

I do not support gay marriage. A marriage is one man and one woman.
Gay marriage is a symptom of a decadent culture.

Good thing that, as Rawls said, the tolerants don't have to tolerate the intolerants especially if they threaten the order of society.

Canadians have a very bad reputation, for cruelty to seals. It makes you sick when you see these canadian barbarians killing baby seals.

If equality is the path to decadence I am happy to have any part in helping clear the road.

Oregon, I'm with you there too.

Here in the UK, only a Church of England wedding is automatically legal. For other religions, the registrar can come out and make it legal, but only if you're in an 'authorized' building - which if it's a small congregation that doesn't meet in a purpose-built location, or a minority faith like Paganism that isn't recognized at all, won't be possible.

Meanwhile, the legal ceremony can't include anything even vaguely spiritual - thanks to the C of E, which insisted it couldn't back when civil ceremonies first came in. So why should any of the spiritual ceremonies be legal? Just get everyone to sign a piece of paper and then let them do whatever they want by way of ceremony afterwards, which is more or less what they do in France. They have a state religion, but at least they don't let it call the shots about what anyone of another faith, or none, wants to do.

Anyway, to get back on topic, I wish they'd ditch the 'civil partnership' stuff. Gay and lesbian couples get married, from what I've seen and heard of such events. They vow to look after and love each other for life. They get rights of next of kin and all that. About the only thing they can't do between the two of them at present is have a child (of their own), and if that makes you not properly married, well, I guess I and my hubby of nine years are living in sin. Big deal. It's not my vote, but I'm for everyone being given the same rights and the same terminology.

Oh goodie! A nationalistic bigot!

Countries are something that should shunned for their division of mankind into petty areas of 'cultural heritage'.

I cannot speak for skafather84, but I most certainly am not a pansy, I will make a stand for egalitarianism.