As for this idea to remove the word “marriage” from all state laws and replace it with “domestic partnership”… good intentions are behind it, I’m sure… but it’s poorly thought out and would end up backfiring if passed. Other states can simply choose not to honor domestic partnerships, and in the meantime, we’ve backed away from the fight for full and complete equality. And honestly, does anyone really expect any other states to follow suit and purge “marriage” from all state laws, replacing it with “domestic partnership”? There’d be riots over semantics in every single state, and a hell of a lot of really pissed off bridezillas!

My lover and I don’t want to be “domestically partnered”… We want to be MARRIED, and we want it to be recognized as legal and valid in all 50 states. It’s a civil right. Period. No amount of “spin” will change that fact, and nothing less is real equality.

This approach makes the same mistake religious conservatives make— both conflate civil marriage with religious marriage. Civil marriages in the U.S. are already completely seperate entitites from religious marriage. Atheists get married. A license from the state is what is required. It has nothing to do with anyone’s religion.

This is NOT true in much of Europe where there are often state churches. For example, when Norway passed marriage equality they instructed the Lutheran Church– the state church of Norway, what to do saying they must allow local congregations to choose to marry same sex couples.

Nothing of the sort is possible in the U.S. where we have no state religion and we have seperation of church and state.

This approach is nonsensical. Civil marriage has long existed in religiously diverse societies and this has often incuded both same and opposite sex couples both crossculturally and transhistorically.

In fact, the oldest civil marriage records we have are clay tablets documenting civil marriages and related decisions of the courts from ancient Sumeria around 3,000 years ago and yes they include both same sex and opposite sex couples under the same civil contract just as many other cultures have done by contract and/or cultural tradition before and/or since.

As it says in Ezekiel, “there is nothing new under the sun”. That includes same sex marriage which is only new to us because of the wests uniquely extreme heterosexism and homophobia which had been exported to much of the world via colonialism making it seem universal while transhistorically and cross culturally it appears the obverse to be closer to the truth.

I would love to have the word marriage, but as long as were on par with our heterosexual counterparts…im FINE! Another reason why I support this is becasue it further removes the church from our government. Marriage is a sacrament the government has no buisness tending to, even though it see it as civil institution.

Whats next civil communion, for some people and crackers for others. Get the church out of the government.

Domestic Partnerships for everybody. I will also support the amendment to overturn prop 8 that will likely land on the ballot.

http://www.dompar.org/Domestic_Partnership.pdf

“So we are about to go official in collecting signatures. We are almost done setting up our website: dompar.org. There will be directions on how you can become part of this important movement in solving this problematic issue. We appreciate all the feedback thus far.”

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42833687407&ref=nf