Hartford Courant: Civil Unions Approved
Gov. Jodi Rell signed the same-sex civil unions bill at close of business today.
Despite all the self-congratulation about this bill -- "the legislature acted without a threat from the courts" -- we will have to see what happens now to the seven cases pending in the court. The fact that there's been no imminent threat from the courts on this has been propagandist genius. The new law will alter the argument in these cases, adding force to the idea that civil unions, as opposed to marriage, are discriminatory.
The legislature should have addressed the issue of same-sex marriage directly. Better yet, there should have been a straight-forward non-binding citizens' referendum on marriage.
This is historic. As a resident of Connecticut I have seen the arguments from the inside, as it were. It will be interesting to see what happens now in other states.
Most of the arguments evangelical Christians used to persuade their legislators to oppose this bill were completely ineffective. More than that, they were theologicaly incorrect.
1)They denied the doctrine of original sin. We believe that we are all born sinners. Therefore, whether homosexuality is a choice or something we are born with is the wrong question. It owes more to Pelagianism than to biblical theology.
2)They denied the psychosomatic unity of human beings. The resurrection is crucial. It teaches us that we are not souls housed in bodies, not ghosts in machines. The dissolution of soul and body is temporary and unnatural. We therefore should not be surprised if there are biological markers for behavior.
3)They were unclear about the relationship between church and state, conceding too much ground irretrievably from the outset.
I am not saying Christians should have argued with legislators over the doctrine of original sin, etc. But their thinking should have been so shaped by these doctrines that they never would have offered such naive, and wrong, arguments to begin with.
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3 comments:
I don't understand the propagandist genius part, or the bit about civil unions being discriminatory. Could you explain these?
There was a lawsuit filed in Connecticut shortly after Vermont recognizeed civil unions regarding same-sex marriage. The judge did not hear the case, stating in her opinion that since Connecticut did not allow same-sex civil unions or marriage she could not hear the case. The wording is a little odd. Even though the case was about marriage the judge hinted that even with a civil unions law, she'd hear the case. So, the civil unions bill gives these petitioners standing they did not have before in cases about marriage.
It may be that the ammendment to the bill, that defines marriage as between one man and one woman, will effectively shut down the petitions for marriage licenses. On the other hand, it could just as likely open the door to the question as to why there are two exactly parallel tracks -- separate but equal -- in the state of Connecticut. Remember the only difference, as far the state is concerned, is the name. Civil unions are marriage. If one enters a civil union, already being married, he/she is a bigamist. If a divorce settlement is contingent on a party not getting remarried, entering into a civil union terminates the settlement. The bill actually has a paragraph stating that all Connecticut statues, with a few exceptions, that reference marriage, should be replaced with "marriage and civil unions." The paragraph reads like word processing instructions, "do a global search and replace ..." And so on. It's just a name!
So, if the state has already declared, through passing this bill, that same-sex relationships are equivalent in every way to heterosexual relationships, and entitled to recognition by the state, state-conferred benefits, etc., then what reason could possibly be offered for withholding a label? And if the state has redefined the state's interest in marriage so that it is nothing more than what Chambers argued in the Hofstra Law Review article, acknowledging nondestructive relationships that already exist, then what reason could be given for withholding a label? There are no arguments left -- no appeal to the uniqueness of marriage -- it simply isn't any more -- no appeal to the state's unique interest in marriage -- there isn't any. The logic of this action is such that a court, already inclined toward gay marriage, will find that discrimination is the only reason for the difference in label.
The legislature made no apology about redefining marriage. Some claimed they weren't redefining it, but most allowed they were. They pointed to the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws as historical precedent for it. This, too, was propagandist genius because it smears opponents to same-sex marriage with the racism that was behind those laws.
Ah, so the bit that you were referring to as genius before was the claim that there wasn't a threat from the courts. The court cases had been about marriage, but these are civil unions; however, the new law will still affect those marriage cases.
Is that right?
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