Cheers, California--congratu-frickin-lations.
And New York, not to be outdone, is getting into the act in a very interesting way...
A few years ago, I saw the following sign quoted (I'm paraphrasing from memory, unfortunately). I think the website said that it was hung in a men's club in London.
No dogs are allowed in the club. Any assistance animal is a cat.
This was on a website of humorous quotes, and is amusing because instead of changing the rules of the club to fit reality, the club is changing the name of the animal and therefore, the animal can be in the club. It's silly.
In a way, this is kind of what they are trying to do by calling unions between two members of the same sex a civil union rather than a marriage. With a civil union is a clear contract between two people. They are responsible for x, y and z. They are allowed these privileges as a result.
But what a civil union doesn't grant is society's relationship to the couple. And I am not talking about whether or not some people are homophobic and don't think that they should be married. I'm talking about Society with a Big S.
Marriage is historically about the binding of a man and woman "into one flesh". One political unit. One economic unit. Public/private, active/passive, soul/body, all united. And in the common law tradition, this is particularly pronounced--the woman became a femme covert and no longer had a legal identity outside of her relationship to her husband.
As a result, she couldn't buy or sell property nor take out a line of credit without his permission. She could also not testify against him in court (nor he against her, incidentally).
Now the property laws have been greatly relaxed almost to a point of financial independence. In the United States, women began to have autonomy over their property starting in 1853 and as of the 1970s were able to get credit cards in their own name without the signature of their husbands. In fact, in Maryland, at least, spouses are not legally responsible, any longer, for each other's debt.
Married couples don't have full autonomy from each other, of course. A house bought by one spouse is owned by the other, for example. And still, a spouse cannot testify against the spouse in a court of law. Because they ultimately are regarded as one flesh.
So what does this have to do with civil unions? And dogs who shall be cats?
Well, the law--and society, for that matter--is pretty sure of where marriage partners stand in relation to each other. The rules might frequently change, they might be challenged in court and in the pages of the NY Times, but there is a certain day of beginning of a changed civil state and a certain day of termination, and it is very clear what the responsibilities and privileges of each party in the marital relationship (in effect, the two spouses and Society) are.
A civil unions is also a legal construction. But unlike marriage, it is not accompanied by as pronounced a social construction. It does not have the legal clarity that marriage enjoys and nor does it have the same historical weight behind it (because, while marriage did mean different things in different times and places, there is almost always a social structure that the society recognizes as marriage).
So do people in civil unions ALWAYS get to visit a partner in the hospital? Does a house belonging to one of the united also NECESSARILY belong to the other? May people in civil unions NEVER testify against a partner?
Does society consider them bound in one flesh?
Why create out of thin air a new legal construction that is separate and not necessarily equivalent when a legal and socially clear mechanism already exists? The result will be both burdensome on legislators, who may feel the need to retrofit the statutes pertaining to marriage to civil unions as well. But most of all it is also not backed by the same social and philosophical weight that marriage enjoys and is therefore a socially inferior and legally murkier state.
