No, this is a different issue.
No, comparison to school desegration is not a different issue. We're talking equality here. In many places in this country legal segregation was what society wanted and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to give it up.
The California Supreme Court is not the law of the land, it's the law of California.
Sure enough, but not my point.
The issue still has to be settled at a national evel.
As before, I agree.
But if there are two names for the exact same rights I fail to see how that will be held to be "second class institution."
That's precisely why you need to read the California Supreme Court decision. It explains why a civil union is a second-class institution.
Or perhaps those that have "a more progressive view of marriage" need to get over it or deal with the fact that society doesn't agree with them.
So now not only are you expecting those with traditional views of marriage to recognize marriages of gay couples, you want to tell them that their church will no longer have the legal ability to perform marriages? You seem to expect society to just drop centuries of tradition because you want it to. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
Or perhaps the "marriage" of a gay couple should have no standing in law instead?
And you seem to want society to maintain centuries of tradition just because you want it to. It's that sort of attitude that kept slavery alive in this country till past the middle of the nineteenth century, and give women no legal existence apart from their husbands until well into the nineteenth century. And these are not invalid comparisions if you are going to argue from "tradition" and "what society wants" or agrees or disagrees with. "Society" and the law eventually "dropped" the centuries-long tradition of slavery just because the abolitionists wanted it to and worked long and hard for many years to prevail because ultimately
they were in the right.No, I didn't say I wanted to tell them their churches would no longer have "the legal ability to perform marriages." I said the churches should no longer have the ability to perform legal marriages. The placement of the word
legal in that sentence makes a difference, and I was very precise in what I wrote. I said nothing about forbidding religious or church marriages. By all means, let church "marriages" continue. I just said that it should no longer be the words of the clergy person and the clergy person's signature on a document that creates a legal union that needs a court action to be dissolved. It should be obtaining a license by oath or affirmation that creates the union that requires a court to dissolve it.