{"id":5849,"date":"2009-01-28T10:25:34","date_gmt":"2009-01-28T18:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=5849"},"modified":"2019-12-23T13:42:09","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T21:42:09","slug":"everything-but-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2009\/01\/28\/everything-but-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything But Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:4541,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\\\/html\\\/localnews\\\/2008678229_apwadomesticpartnerships.html?syndication=rss&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20090202155047\\\/http:\\\/\\\/seattletimes.nwsource.com:80\\\/html\\\/localnews\\\/2008678229_apwadomesticpartnerships.html?syndication=rss&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-07 10:41:36&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-07 10:41:36&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>I happen to be of the opinion that we should remove marriage from the secular system entirely &#8212; that is, courts would merely deal with civil unions, which would be identical and impart identical rights to any couple, straight or gay &#8212; and let the churches handle marriage ceremonies for people who want them. If God doesn&#8217;t want same-sex couples to marry, then fine, let the churches bar their doors. But there is <em>absolutely no reason<\/em> why same-sex couples shouldn&#8217;t get all the same legal rights and privileges that heterosexual couples do.<\/p>\n<p>Barring that solution, however, <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/localnews\/2008678229_apwadomesticpartnerships.html?syndication=rss\" title=\"Seattle Times: 'Everything but marriage' bill for gay couples\">this is a good step forward<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  State lawmakers are getting ready to introduce a bill allowing same-sex couples all the rights and benefits afforded to heterosexual married couples.<\/p>\n<p>  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>  The measure makes changes to all remaining areas of state law where currently only married couples are addressed.<\/p>\n<p>  The bill would add same-sex domestic partners to state statutes ranging from labor and employment to criminal law, to pensions and other public employee benefits.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I happen to be of the opinion that we should remove marriage from the secular system entirely &#8212; that is, courts would merely deal with civil unions, which would be identical and impart identical rights to any couple, straight or gay &#8212; and let the churches handle marriage ceremonies for people who want them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[14,103],"class_list":["post-5849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}