Acidus wrote:
] How can people keep a straight face when talking about denying
] gays the right to use the word marriage because we have to
] preseve the "sanctity" or "moral tradition" of the word,
] while we live in a country where over half of all of these
] "moral traditions" end in divorce?

i think it's a stupid debate too. on the one hand, I could care less what it's called, if the rights conveyed are the same. People have been charging this issue with 'separate but equal' verbiage which muddies the point. In the previous context, separate but equal meant literally, physically separate... separate washrooms, drinking fountains, seating areas, etc. In this context, it's a matter of how your status is recorded at the county clerks office. Normal humans will continue to say marriage, if only because it's simpler and more economical to say, so the semantics of it become minimally invasive.

the main argument against it in my opinion is that if the terms "married" and "united" (or whatever) become distinct, then it raises privacy concerns. checking "united" flags you as gay. Not that it isn't public record anyhow, but i see potential for abuse which would be avoided if the terms weren't split. I guess you could mandate that forms have only one checkbox for "married/united"... i dunno.

in the final analysis, yeah, i'd side with acidus... it's a fricking word, and it means "two people who love each other enough to commit for their lives (ha!) to supporting each other and their family" as far as i'm concerned. the semantics of gender are retarded. that being said, i'd rather see people get the rights under the term "civil union" than to not get them at all over what I see as a silly semantic argument. But i'm not gay, so my "silly semantic argument" could be someone else's "critical issue".

RE: Civil Unions: Your alternate union