{"id":1768,"date":"2009-12-13T08:42:05","date_gmt":"2009-12-13T08:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/gay-marriage-or-civil-union-would-less-be-more\/"},"modified":"2009-12-13T08:42:05","modified_gmt":"2009-12-13T08:42:05","slug":"gay-marriage-or-civil-union-would-less-be-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/libertarianism\/gay-marriage-or-civil-union-would-less-be-more.php","title":{"rendered":"Gay Marriage or Civil Union: Would Less be More?"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>New York lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have made their state the sixth to allow gay marriage, stunning advocates who suffered a similar decision by Maine voters just last month.<\/p><p>The New York measure needed 32 votes to pass and failed by a wider-than-expected margin, falling eight votes short in a 24-38 decision by the state Senate. The Assembly had earlier approved the bill, and Gov. David Paterson, perhaps the bill's strongest advocate, had pledged to sign it. <\/p><\/blockquote><p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/12\/02\/AR2009120201604.html?hpid=moreheadlines\">outcomes<\/a> in New York and Maine are disappointing because they would have represented legislative legalization of gay marriage, rather than judicial imposition.&nbsp;&nbsp; The former is more likely to reflect&nbsp;the general will of the people and therefore be more stable.<br>&nbsp; <br>I wonder whether advocates of gay marriage would have greater success if they focussed on civil unions, rather than marriage per se.&nbsp; While the actual difference is small to non-existent, the symbolic difference seems to be large.&nbsp;&nbsp;Widespread adoption of civil union need not be the ultimate goal, but it represents a significant, positive step. <br>&nbsp; <br>The ultimate goal, of course, should not be marriage for opposite and same-sex couples; it should be civil unions for both, with marriages a private matter left to religions.&nbsp;&nbsp; The strategy of adopting civil unions&nbsp;for same-sex couples would not necessarily achieve this goal, but the current strategy does not appear especially successful either.<\/p><div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/b5219_6379328854053402400-9046636845928680272?l=jeffreymiron.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have made their state the sixth to allow gay marriage, stunning advocates who suffered a similar decision by Maine voters just last month.The New York measure needed 32 votes to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/libertarianism\/gay-marriage-or-civil-union-would-less-be-more.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-libertarianism"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}