Civil Unions Bill

[critterlover]

@Bob: When you strip away all the faith issues of marriage, it's nothing but a contract. It really should be one item, Contract of Union which is the State’s legal recognition of the union. If a particular faith wishes to impose items to validate that Contract of Union under their faith's laws or beliefs, that's their business. But the faith's beliefs and requirements should not be the State's requirements.

ME: Absolutely! In fact, isn't that why we have 'ministers' who are ordained and recognized by the 'state' as certified to officiate over the 'civil union' and, if someone does not wish to use a 'religious' setting they have the justice of the peace, commonly called a 'civil ceremony'? Since it is the civil authority who requires some certification, some legal document that shows there is a contract/agreement between the individuals to share a committed life, why would any religious aspects be considered. Faith based/religious groups have their own system of procedures in 'marrying' [I want to say couple here but to be honest there is another segment of society who wishes to look at a civil union between multiple partners so I will leave off referencing civil unions as a 'couple']folks and in that setting they can use their own 'words' to embrace the moment.

To me, this, like all matters, seems to have been done from a purely political premise. Big surprise, she is a politician.

“A penny saved is a government oversight.”

[robguz]

kalama boy, tell that to the Laysan albatross that nest on Oahu. 1/3 of them are same sex pairings who manage to naturally raise chicks. Same sex behavior is well established in many, many species, including great apes. Our pleistoceine ancestors almost certainly had some level of homosexual behavior. Our closest relatives the bonobo chimps are a female dominated society and recreational sex with both sexes is the norm, pretty much as it is in our species when you remove external lega, societal, and psychological controls and people feel free to be themselves. I don't know any gays or lesbians that had anything other than heterosexual parents, so homosexuality is not going to just disappear just like it has not disappeared in all the other species it exists in.
Civil Unions are based on legal reasoning, not "I don't think it's natural." What about eating processed flour. It's certainly not natural. Should we make some people 2nd class citizens because they eat wheat (also not naturally occurring as grown) in an unnatural form? Marriage laws have nothing to do with sex or procreation otherwise we would dissolve and disallow marriages that are sexless, where one is sterile, post-menapause, etc. Some people in this country seem to have no idea what the law is or how it works, what the constitution is or how it works, etc.

The issue is dead until the next governor. In 20 years this will be a non-issue. 70% opposed inter-racial marriage when the Supreme Court said it was illegal to ban it, and this is a far higher percent than oppose gay marriage now. How many nowadays will publicly state they think inter-racial marriage should be illegal? People under 40 overwhelmingly don't really care and aren't intimidated or feel uncomfortable by anything gay. No actual secure heterosexual person is. In almost every case there is either latent homosexuality, guilt about early same sex play (studies consistently show 1/3 of male have sexual contact with another male at some point) or some underlying personality disorder to explain anti-gay sentiment.

[kalama boy]

AlohaSteven mahalo for your thoughtful answer to my question.

Robguz the fact still remains that two same sex humans can NOT reproduce together. Those are not my laws but they seem right and natural to me, so I believe in them.

Another question I had was can anyone list the civl rights that are being denied to homosexuals? I have heard there are many but have never seen them actually listed. And what if 3 or more people or 4 brothers or any other combination want to enter into civil unions, surely you would not deny them the same rights and benefits missing today. Is it anything goes? It sounds like it's all legal paperwork matters to me.

Robguyz, no underlying personality disorder, or any of the other things you listed as the cause for my reasoning, I'm just an average, hard working guy that happens believe in natural selection.

Mahalo for the honest debate on this issue.

[KeaauRich]

Kalama,
Here are just a few (copied from the HRC website)

Because same-sex couples are denied the right to marry, same-sex couples and their families are denied access to the more than 1,138 federal rights, protections and responsibilities automatically granted to married heterosexual couples. Among those are:

* The right to make decisions on a partner's behalf in a medical emergency. Specifically, the states generally provide that spouses automatically assume this right in an emergency. If an individual is unmarried, the legal "next of kin" automatically assumes this right. This means, for example, that a gay man with a life partner of many years may be forced to accept the financial and medical decisions of a sibling or parent with whom he may have a distant or even hostile relationship.
* The right to take up to 12 weeks of leave from work to care for a seriously ill partner or parent of a partner. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 permits individuals to take such leave to care for ill spouses, children and parents but not a partner or a partner's parents.
* The right to petition for same-sex partners to immigrate.
* The right to assume parenting rights and responsibilities when children are brought into a family through birth, adoption, surrogacy or other means. For example, in most states, there is no law providing a noncustodial, nonbiological or nonadoptive parent's right to visit a child - or responsibility to provide financial support for that child - in the event of a breakup.
* The right to share equitably all jointly held property and debt in the event of a breakup, since there are no laws that cover the dissolution of domestic partnerships.
* Family-related Social security benefits, income and estate tax benefits, disability benefits, family-related military and veterans benefits and other important benefits.
* The right to inherit property from a partner in the absence of a will.
* The right to purchase continued health coverage for a domestic partner after the loss of a job.

Such inequities impose added costs on these families, such as increased health insurance premiums, higher tax burdens and the absence of pension benefits or Social Security benefits in the event of a partner's death.

Some same-sex and transgender families consult attorneys to draw up legal documents such as powers of attorney, co-parenting agreements and wills, that will at least permit them to declare who they wish to make health care and financial decisions for them if they become incapacitated; how they wish to share parenting responsibilities or, in the event of a breakup, custody of a child; and what they want to happen to their property when they die. However, these are not a substitute for legal protection under law and cannot provide the broad range of benefits and protections provided by law.

[critterlover]

KeaauRich said: Some same-sex and transgender families consult attorneys to draw up legal documents such as powers of attorney, co-parenting agreements and wills, that will at least permit them to declare who they wish to make health care and financial decisions for them if they become incapacitated; how they wish to share parenting responsibilities or, in the event of a breakup, custody of a child; and what they want to happen to their property when they die. However, these are not a substitute for legal protection under law and cannot provide the broad range of benefits and protections provided by law.

ME: Correct! And in fact, depending on the place in this country, all the legal documents you have listed could be contested in the various courts, like family court by a blood relative who disagreed with the parental arrangement with the mate regarding a minor child; or, by blood relatives in civil court who disagreed with the wishes of the dead partner. A federal law in support of civil unions which was also supported in each state accordingly would remove that threat in those places where it exists. There is a double standard; no equality.

“A penny saved is a government oversight.”

[robguz]

My friends who have been together over 30 years and paying tons of money into Social Security. One of them dies, the $ stays with the government because they are denied the right to marry, which is a long established right by the Supreme Court in this country. If they could marry, the surviving spouse could collect social security. That is one of over 1000 federal rights that gay couples are denied. Actually civil unions would not affect any of those unfortunately, but would affect rights within the state.
No same sex humans can reproduce together. Mmmkay? What does that have to do with anything. No sterile opposite sex couple can reproduce together. No opposite sex couple where the woman is post menapausal can reproduce together, etc. Marriage laws (again civil unions fall far short of marriage) have nothing to do with reproduction. As it is 40% of children are born to un married couples and through about 95% of our species' history no children were born to married couples because there was no such thing as marriage. Natural selection has nothing to do whatsoever with this argument. It's like saying, I believe in gravity, therefore robbing banks should be illegal.
No well adjusted person obsesses over the sex lives of others to the point of wanting to deny basic human rights to them. Most people with personality disorders are undiagnosed.
It's irrelevant at this point whether 3 people, 4 brothers etc want some level of civil rights regarding their relationships because there are no such bills/cases working their way through the legislatures/courts that I'm aware of. Laws and precedent regarding marriage in this country are so far based on 2 people, and precendent is that the states have power to regulate them.
Again regarding natural selection. Laws aren't based on natural selection, so again totally irrelevant. If they were, this would be an awful world and disabled people would be actively discriminated against if not specfically eliminated, for example.

[Rob Tucker]

The simple force of logic is not lost on me. Unfortunately for too many people logic goes out the window and emotion takes over.

It has been my observation, in Hawaii and elsewhere, that many conservatives (not all) seem to enjoy nothing more than criticizing and telling other people how to run their lives. Not that they take their own advice. They are usually rather thin skinned if you do the same to them. A case of they can dish it our but they can't take it. One example: They don't want the gay community to have equal rights.... but don't tell them they can't lead prayers in school.

[csgray]

Kalama boy,
Marriage exists in many forms and for many reasons in different societies and at different times in history, but the three reasons that are most consistently found are: care and nurturing of children, care of the elderly and infirm, and conservation of wealth or capitol within the family. The last one has a huge range from the right to sleep on a certain patch of sidewalk in India to wealth at the level of Bill Gates. Whose actual sperm and egg produce those children and who raises them varies greatly from society to society; in some societies children are rarely raised by the biological mother and father, but are raised by other family or clan members.

My husband and I cannot biologically have children together, as is the case with many heterosexual couples for various reasons including age, surgical or natural sterility, genetic incompatibility or choice. By your logic our marriage should not be valid and I find that line of reasoning personally offensive. With this argument you are attacking the validity of hundreds of thousands of non child bearing heterosexual couples, just to argue against the legal rights of gay people to register a committed relationship with the State of Hawaii, and receive the legal benefits they are due as citizens of this state. I think this "I believe in natural selection" line of logic is just a smokescreen behind which to hide oppression of a minority. The last group to use natural selection as a large scale basis for legal reasoning and to justify the oppression of minorities was in power in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. Do we really want to go there in this country?

Here in Hawaii first cousins can already legally marry, even though the odds of such a union producing children with genetic disorders is much higher than with non related parents. So if two people who stand a higher chance of having a genetically flawed offspring are allowed to have a legally recognized relationship in Hawaii, why can't two people whose marriage will never produce such a child? They can still form a family through adoption, still care for the elderly (gay people all have parents too), and now would be better able to conserve capitol within their family from generation to generation.

Again, anyone who doesn't want to participate in a gay marriage or civil union shouldn't, just leave the rest of us alone to pursue happiness as is our constitutionally protected right, and quit trying to justify legal oppression on religious or "natural selection" grounds.




Carol

[kalama boy]

Robguz, csgray
Relax people, look again at my two posts.
I never said "I don't think homosexuals should have equal rights" or that "I am telling them how to run their lives". I have not "argued against equal rights for homosexuals" in any way.
csgray I never said "if you don't have children a marriage is not valid" And comparing me to a nazi for asking a question.....are you serious?

I simply don't have the same belief in homosexuality as you. Can you handle that? You are of course entitled to your own beliefs, I can handle that and respect them.

Like Rob, I also am married (once) and intend to stay that way. I never knew there were over 1,138 (that's a strange number) federal civil rights granted to heterosexual couples. I will look closer at that list to see what I have been missing all these years, and gay's have been denied.

Question: Shouldnt then, these over 1,138 civil rights in question be given at BIRTH to EVERY american individual without regard to civil unions, marriages or any other type of union? To not do so, by your logic, would discriminate against any other union that is not 1 man and 1 woman or in your view any 2 adult humans.
What about the right to marry for, lets say, 3 or more? Everyone seems to side step that question.

Again I am only expressing MY feelings on why I think homosexuality is unnatural, I'm not interested in changing yours. Obviously csgray natural selection does exist, or there would be no ongoing evolution of any species.

Robguz you said "through about 95% of our species history no children were born to married couples because there was no such thing as marriage". But you can't deny that 100% of the children born during that span, in fact every person ever born on this planet was produced by 1 man and 1 woman. Why is that robguz?

csgray you said "some societys children are barley raised by the biological mother and father",.... but 100% of them were conceived, naturally, by a mother and father.
One thing seems certain....... if it were not for the natural union of man and woman (not 2 men or 2 women) there would be no human race. Do you agree?
That is why, robguz, that matters to me and feels right and natural.

One last question that may or may not cut straight to the heart of this issue: Do you think the real issue with homosexuals is about civil rights and benefits or is it actually about the absolute acceptance by society that they think the word marriage may bring to their beliefs?
Is the real underlying issue acceptance?

Our communication is key to understanding and living with each others different views and opinions. There will always be differing views. I understand and can live with yours, can you live with mine?
Mahalo.

[Rob Tucker]

Now that was a nice rational commentary, worthy of a civil discussion.

Mahalo

Assume the best and ask questions.

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