Marriage vs civil union

I confess to some confusion regarding the issue of “gay rights” as it pertains to marriage. I love to quibble and this is an issue tailor-made for it if ever there was one. Marriage is the spiritual union of two people generally, though not necessarily, acknowledged by a state or religious authority as a type of contract. In the sense that a state sanctions that union it is, by definition, a civil union. A union of two people by an officer of the state is commonly called a civil ceremony. Whether the two then refer to their contract as a marriage or some other term is a personal matter.

For good or ill most people have a personal definition of the word marriage that is unlikely to change. No such issue pertains to the term civil union. An awful lot of couples that refer to their union as marriage are, in fact, united by contract and common species only. Few people have any serious issue with these contractual arrangements. These are referred to commonly as marriages in name only.

Why should not all civil unions be called just that in all official state documents? Strike the word marriage from the license, the contract, and the law. Let marriage be the province of the church subsequent to, if desired, the civil union. Thus would the baggage associated with the word marriage return to society at large and cease to be a legal matter. Frankly, marriage is more a state of mind and grace than one of law. The state already views it as merely a contractual arrangement. The hullabaloo is about a word that has no place in the legal code of a society that prides itself on non-interference with religion.

We seem, these days, to seek a complex legislative solution to every petty problem that comes up. It seldom occurs to us that often solutions may be found in legislative retreat. This issue is one that I think the state would be happy to hand off to the people. Simply define, for the purposes of the state, all marriages to be civil unions and the word “marriage” to have no legal weight. Churches may do as they believe proper with petitioners for the sacrament of “marriage” without recognition, interference, or guidance from the state. Little would change but the legal terminology. Let all states renounce control and recognition of marriage with “civil union” replacing the word “marriage” in prior law and all subsequent legislation pertaining to such relationships.

The government has plenty on its plate without having to legislate what people choose to name their sleeping arrangements.