No Surprise Here...

Okay, I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. I’m college educated, I can balance my check book, I can even find most foreign countries on a map, but for the life of me I have no clue what John Warner’s position is on this issue. He talked about the “American People being able to understand the legislation, yet this American can’t understand what he is trying to say. Someone please enlighten me.

In addition I have asked this question before, and ask it once more; what is the legal difference between a marriage and a civil union? I’m not asking about religion or ceremony, I’m asking about the LEGAL difference.

M 5-19,

Sorry for not answering this question earlier. I've gotten a bit educated on the question since then.

See this article.

This doesn't answer the "legal" question directly, but implies the difference in VA would be minimal, thus the additional wording in the proposed amendment.

Current law in Virginia, House Bill 751, clearly outlaws civil unions.

I'm pretty sure this will be a state- by -state issue, as that's the level at which marriage rules are established.

that's the level at which marriage rules are established until 2008, when the spector of constitutional activism shall once again yell BOO! into the echo chamber! ; )

Yeah, Warner's statement is pretty darn vague... absurd given he is criticizing the second part of the Marriage Protection Amendment for the same thing! Anyways, as I understand it he voted in favor of invoking cloture. Thus he voted in favor of the Amendment. Those opposed (mainly Sociocrats) voted against cloture.

Also, when looking at civil unions vs marriage it is good to examine the Goodridge decision in MA that made same-sex "marriage" legal via judicial decree.

After the initial ruling many thought creating Vermont-esque civil unions would solve the issue and prevent same-sex "marriage" (by creating it under a different name... makes little sense to me, just semantics). Well when they asked the court to weigh in on this they said that wouldn’t fly:

"the history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal"

Assuming other courts would share this logic, civil unions thus provide a vehicle for same-sex "marriage" advocates to establish the legal benefits of marriage under a different name and then use the "separate but equal" segregation style argument to then achieve the redefinition of marriage itself. Something to be cognizant of…

Joe and Sophrosyne,
I've been agreeing with you guys way too much. Please post a thread that we can disagree on becuase I'm starting to scare myself.

Sophrosyne,
I have to say that I still feel the same even after the discussion and after reading House Bill 751 which is very clear. It says that the Commonwealth does not recognize any, 'civil union' or marriage under any other name by two people of the same sex. I really do believe the states can accomplish this without amending the constitution. I still strongly believe that if we began to amend the constitution for issues that can be considered political in nature (such as this one) we will open the door to amending it for other types of issues (such as citizenship etc. This does seem to be a States Rights issues. Interracial marriage was also not allowed in states at one time, (this may still be true in some Southern states) but the states handled those issues without a constitutional amendment.

I think you are all jerks. A person should have the right to choose in this short life what ever is fulfilling and makes them happy.