I hope our chances will be good in the U.K., a secular nation that pays little attention to religious arguments.
But I’m reminded that a civil union in London is still a helluva lot better than a gay marriage in New York, where gay couples are denied a raft of rights and benefits and responsibilities that go along with nationwide recognition.

I’ve pondered that question, matt, about whether a British CP is better than a marriage in an American state, and I’ve never come to a definitive conclusion.

When you consider legal rights, you’re absolutely right that a British CP is superior because it has national status.

But in day to day life, my civil marriage here in MA may be superior to a British CP because everyone I come in contact with on a daily basis knows that I’m married and treats me as married. There is no doubt what that means, and no explanations are ever necessary. And, my marriage is recognized wherever marriage equality is law. That isn’t always the case with civil unions and domestic partnerships.

So all I can conclude is that there are advantages and drawbacks to both situations.

David Cameron, a Tory, is to the left of Barack Obama on this.

So are Dick Cheney and Ted Olson.

Obama is still “evolving”.

I can only speak for myself — but if/when I decide to get married, I’ll describe it as a marriage regardless of the legal status. It will be, in religious and (much more importantly) social terms, a marriage — so that’s what I’ll call it. If it comes up in conversation, I’ll of course note that it’s a marriage that the law in the U.S. (regardless of state law) treats as a separate and unequal form (if it’s recognized at all), but regardless of what the law calls it, it will be a marriage.

(This has been one of my biggest disappointments with the Unitarian Universalist church. Too many congregations have been willing to insist that law controls language, controls social practice, even controls religious practice. I refuse to associate with any religious group, no matter how generally progressive, that uses the excuse of state sanction to label my relationship second-class. Of course, there are plenty of congregations, in the UU and elsewhere, where I don’t have to compromise, which is certainly nice.)

I certainly agree that if you get a religious marriage or have a non-religious commitment ceremony, you should call it a marriage at church and in society if that is what it means to you. The exception would only be when you have to declare the legal name for your relationship if in addition to your religious/social marriage you weren’t also able to obtain a civil marriage.

My partner and I have both a Civil Partnership in the UK and are married in Connecticut. In the UK the civil partnership will guarantee me access to him in a hospital and I’d be his next of kin. Any children we adopted would automatically have us both as parents. If one died the other would inherit our home without thinking about selling something to pay inheritance taxes. Although we cherish our CT marriage very much, it pales in comparison to the British Civil Partnership. With the change in New York state we don’t even know whether we have to file jointly or not (it’s not completely simple).

Let’s get proper federal recognition of gay marriage and proper civil rights!

Not sure why the author refers to the Republic of Ireland. The Irish government has introduced civil partnerships but there’s little talk of gay marriage yet. The UK government changes won’t have any impact on Ireland – even Scotland and Northern Ireland will probably have to have parallel legislation if the law in England & Wales is changed.

I mentioned Ireland because it shows forward momentum in the British Isles. But I take your point that its inclusion may be confusing since it isn’t moving marriage legislation right now.

Book Salon up with Nicholas Wapshott’s Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics hosted by Paul Davidson

@ Janeane,
obama will come out for marriage equality within the first few weeks of his next term. i don’t mind waiting another 11 months. let’s all make sure we get him there!
what we don’t need is a republican president replacing the ailing justice ruth bader ginsburg with another alito. that will set back lgbt rights for the remainder of my life and probably that of many others.

I have never understood why governments are in the marriage business, anyway. Who is your next of kin is surely a matter you can declare? You should be able to decide for yourself who is your next of kin, who is your beneficiary, etc.

In my country (Canada), back in the olden days we paid our own health insurance to OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) — or it was paid by the employer as a ‘taxable benefit’. Nowadays it is all single-payer, no record-keeping — which is as it should be, IMHO. But back in those days, everyone would to declare either single or family coverage or produce the OHIP number of the person whose coverage they were under. The premiums were $16 and $34 per month, IIRC. But OHIP did not care who you declared as ‘family’. The main point was whether they knew to cover the children (who did not have employers), non-working spouses or partners (of any sex or marital status), on that OHIP number.

I did payroll back then, and once called OHIP to see if they would cover a same=sex couple. The OHIP staff told me that they just wanted to make sure everyone was covered and nobody paid double. Common law, same-sex, they just didn `t care — and this was in 1975. This may be too sensible for Americans…

WRT filing ‘joint’ tsx returns — why? Here everyone files their own tax return. If you are maintaining a household you file ‘married or equivalent’. This does *not* mean ‘living common law’ (which is perfectly legal and respectable here, under the old British rules), but supporting minors and therefore being expected to have more substantial dwellingplace, incl own kitchen and bathroom and such. Again, this may be too sensible for the US, but really — it is *not* rocket science.

I understand that anyone who wants to marry should be able to (we can do that here, too), but really, whether I do or I don’t should be of no concern of either the church or state, unless I wish it so. To me, the push for ‘marriage equality’ seems like totally going the wrong way. They should *both* be out of my sex life, TYVM!

You neglected to mention that he will also give everybody a pony in “the first few weeks of his next term”. That might REALLY get us excited about re-electing him (while we continue to enjoy blatant second-class citizenship in the meantime).

well, jp. vote for romney then. have fun.

Marriage is a government function simply because government is the institutional extension of the community. Marriage is, aside from being a life-stage ritual, a contract, and only governments have the ability to enforce contracts. (And for that matter, community recognition is essential for any life-stage marker, which is why we have marriage licenses, birth certificates, diplomas, driver’s licenses [and if you don't think a driver's license marks a life-stage, you've never lived in an American suburb] and the like.)

A large part of marriage is disposition of property. It’s worth noting that the poor, who had no property to pass along, usually didn’t bother with an “official” marriage (a practice that extended into the early 19th century) — hence the common-law marriage.

As far as the Tories and civil marriage, two points: political parties in Europe tend to be to the left of what we consider their American counterparts, and if you look at all of the reasons for limiting marriage advanced by so-called “conservatives” in this country (barring the “procreation” BS, which is just that), you soon discover that nothing there necessarily excludes same-sex couples and their families.

@Hunter
Their views about budgets and money are as crazy as those of their American counterparts.