Bilerico and Advance Indiana take Sen. Brandt Hershman to the woodshed on SJR 7 – the amendment that would prohibit same sex marriages and prohibit any marriage rights from being extended to unmarried couples. According to those entries, Hershman’s past statements and attempts at legislation cast doubt on his credibility when he suggests that subsection (b) of the Amendment — the provision limiting the potential rights of unmarried couples — actually wouldn’t change anything. Once again, I think it’s useful to post the actual text of subsection (b):
(b) This Constitution or any other Indiana law may not be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
Breaking that down to its broadest reading, it says: Indiana law may not be construed to require that the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon unmarried couples. I don’t know how proponents of the measure get around the interpretation that, if the General Assembly passes a law that conveys a right which is an incident of marriage to an unmarried couple, a court cannot enforce that law. That’s not only a change. That’s a big change.
Technorati Tags: SJR7-2007, culture wars
Ya know, I think I have a solution for this that both sides of the debate could sign on with.
Change the current legal term “marrage” to “civil union”. Husband and wife should be replaced with “partner”. Service to join two people, and only two, can be performed by anyone that has permission from the state. Any two people can be become partners, but only to one other person at a time. Upon divorce, the standard divorce can occur, or a streamlined approch can be defined for former partners that already have an agreeable arragement worked out.
Under this plan, I could be a partner with my brother (if I had one) for tax / healthcare reasons. Whenever I found Mrs. Right, I could divorce my brother. However, I would have some risk, as he might contest this divorce. I’m using this for the most outlandish “misuse” of this new system, but obviously most will use this in the traditional sense.
Now, after becoming partners, a couple may become “Married”. This would have nothing to do with the state or government. It would be a private legal agreement signed at the end of a religious wedding ceremony. Because of the reasons I’m about to list, many pastors / preists / etc may choose to only perform “partnerships” to couples that are also getting married.
In the Marrage agreement, divorce is only permitted for:
Abuse
Infidelity (sp?)
Abandonment
In addition, the person that violates the agreement would also forfet all claims to children, possesions, or debt. The offender would be removed, blankly, for the family at the request of the victim.
Many religious leaders would push for this new legal agreement as it puts the money where the mouth is. It also seperates itself from non-traditional or secular civil unions. Those that have been wanting the legal benefits of a civil union would no longer be denied.
Everyone wins, right?
I have thought of this on and off for a while, and I just reguritated it to this post with very little editing. Feel free to punch holes in it, but I can’t see right now why this wouldn’t work out for everyone.
It’s not a matter of whether an alternative solution would or would not work. The supporters of this outlandish piece of legislation have 2 separate agendas to push by getting it passed. They are:
a) The most obvious one, disenfranchisement of gay people in our state. Really, there is nothing except fear and bigotry behind this motive, with an eye to bringing out the Republican vote when it comes up on the ballot.
b) To force cohabiting heteros into marriage if they wish to keep certain rights and privileges.
The first (gay marriage) would seem to be a wedge issue that has been conjoined to the second (loss of unmarried privileges) which is the true goal. Especially since gay marriage is already illegal in Indiana.
Jason,
The problem is we already have Civil Unions for heterosexual couples and they automtically receive all the rights of marriage whatever we call it. So I think the terminology is a red herring.
My concern is why is this such an issue? Religion should have no say in assigning or denying rights nor does morality (in my opinion).Morality is an individudal assessment,and allowing or disavowing rights in general to people based on personal evaluations is scary indeed. And so many seem to make such evaluations with impunity and look at themseleves as a ‘positive force’. I have been to many, many churches,and without exceptions a church takes on the character of the parishoners who bring into the pews a regional, culture biais of their own. A RCC church ( the chruch Im most familiar with)in Chicago and a RCC chruch in the rural South each reflect the mores of the region.This is true even with the universality of the Mass. The only stability for indiviudal rights comes through our Constitution though longstanding legal precedents,interpreted constitutionally. Moral judgments are most often used to separate and consolidate a base of believers( again ,in myo) and only our Constitution can unite through civil rights,either enumerated or assumed. I don’t mean to assign people names myself,but one facet of fascism is defining groups for exclusion with moral-sounding terms suggesting ‘lack of values’.Always be wary of religious people who assign values to others,in order to define themselves in a sort of ‘backward way’ .There’s a hidden agenda there some place.And this is coming from a person who is getting ready to go off to Mass.And I deliberately mention that to make another point about ‘religious values’.They’re more varied than some people would like to admit.
I do not think enough religious-based thinking is in the mix. My favorite summation line is that the KKK and Martin Luther King both marched to the streets from the chuches. It was the CULTURE marching in both instances.
By the way, I do not mean to imply that these bigots would rather pick on cohabiting singles than gays, only that they could make (or save, depending on one’s point of view) more money by doing so.
Yes, I think many people use the guise of religion to support their biggotry. However, I do feel that there is a large group of people that feel that marriage was something that was once a religious idea and has migrated to a secular idea. Now, people that do not share your belief are defining something that was once only part of your belief.
While you might not think it should be a big deal, the point is that many people who are not against homosexuals are against gay marriage just because they feel it takes something away from their marriage. Those that actually hate homosexuals are able to gain support for their crusade since so many people are protective of the idea of traditional marriage.
I guess my point is that those that want to have a traditional marriage should create their own marriage agreement that REALLY protects traditional marriage (no more divorces just because we can’t work through out problems). After doing that, I think the biggots will lose the popular support they have now. Once you get rid of that support, I think that we’ll see homosexual civil unions nationally.
Perhaps my view of history is too expansive, but marriage as a particularly religious institution doesn’t have that long a history. I believe it was primarily a civil institution until sometime during the 400s AD and didn’t become primarily a religious institution until maybe 800 or 900 years later.
Doug,
Most voter’s history isn’t as expansive as yours. Depending on your scope, “traditional” marriage is arranged, the wife is a servant / childbarer, and it is almost expected that the husband sleep around.
It is an emotional thing, and I think that there is a way to tackle the emotional part of it and allow the law to be written without that emotion.
People “feel” that their church as some ownership of marriage. I think that if the church wants to maintain that, they need to offer this more serious form of commitment.
I say this as someone who was once against gay marriage. I have come to realize that divorce is far more damaging to the instituion of marriage than gay marriage is. I have also come to realize that we can not make laws to enforce religion.
Laws should be made for protection, not morals. The church should be there to discuss morals, but we have failed in that area. I think part of the reason the church has failed is that too many people have been focused on the wrong thing (laws) when they should be focused on spreading the truths of their religion. Just because something is LEGAL does not mean that the people must do it.
Ah yes, back to legislating morality and using the state constitution to determine what is and isn’t a benefit to our state. The Puritans tried the Halfway Covenant in the 1650s and you know what? Didn’t work.
The irony to me is that the folks I know pushing hardest for marriage to have deeper meaning in 2007 are the homosexuals.In 2006 I knew more “traditional couples” who split up than gay couples.