Ah, but there is the difference pointed out a couple of times above. In the United States there would be a much different perceived difference between a civil union in the US and in Europe. In the US the perception and the reality is that a civil union alone without the word marriage would be very unequal.

No, the way the world IS is shown in your list of countries compared to mine. You're assumption that there's a trend that will inevitably continue into the future is pure guesswork.

km

That's not what they thought in California.

km

I have no assumption at all. I am stating a fact. The world IS different now, with regard to same-sex marriage than a few years ago. No matter how you try, that cannot be dismissed. A trend- we shall see

The State Court had ruled that same-sex marriage was permitted.
Proposition 8 struck that ruling and rewrote the State Constitution. That is not Judicial Review and is the reason it is already being challenged in the courts.

The Constitution protects citizen's civil rights so that the rights of a minority cannot be removed by a majority. The state courts, and maybe the US Supreme Court will need to rule to change the Constitution to remove civil rights.

I get to yell out BINGO!! That is why this thread exists. We are disconcerted that the people of California reversed their decision and made same sex marriages illegal again. We think the Mormon Church and possibly a small percentage of people in California took stupid pills on election day.

California leads the way normally in the United States. They may be a tad whacky but they push the envelope. Sadly, in this case they seemed to have goofed.

First of all, there are vast legal differences between Civil Unions and marriage. Property rights, tax benefits, inheritance rights, benefit sharing, shared citizenship for immigrant partners, you name it. Most importantly, Civil Unions are not recognized on a consistent level nationally. So the states are in no way separate but equal, which makes it discrimination.

As far as discrimination being just a feeling, that's just not true. Nor is it an abstract concept. It's something that actually happens to people and has concrete results. And if it happens to a gay couple (for example, a contested will or denial of medical benefits) and they have no legal recourse because their civil union isn't recognized, then they're back to being second-class citizens.

All you did was pick out an unrepresentative minority of states from a very long list... the 'severe reason' why in Britain we don't allow same-sex marriage is that we dealt with discrimination by way of all party agreed solutions.


Yeah sure - most of the nations on my list are democracies except they have some clue about what the term means.

km

You have your own country?

Seriously, the world is not broken up into paradigms.
We are an entity.

Okay, who's gonna phone up Sir Elton John and tell him he's mistaken... he THINKS he's not the victim of discrimination but really he is.

km