I'll tell you what we should do. We shouldn't give those rights to gay people and we should take away those rights from straight people as well. The status quo is a clear discrimination of people who choose not to marry, but may have others in their lives where it would be mutually beneficial to opt into an agreement where they share some of those rights/benefits.
Each one of the rights currently afforded to people in a marriage or civil union should be split up and any two people for whatever reason should be able to opt into some, none or all of those rights.
I'm hoping that one day those pushing for additional rights afforded only to married people, straight or gay, get the exact same treatment that Eich did here.
Marriage shouldn't even be within the purview of the government, only religions.
I see this arguement crop up a lot and I feel like this is largely a semantics issue. "Marriage" as a union under some God and "Marriage" as a package of some 1000+ legal contracts hold the same name for historical reasons (dynamics of the Church in European power structure mostly). When gay mariage is brought up I feel like people just see the religious side and ocasionally the tax breaks and fail to completely grasp the issue. What they gay community wants is to have the easy contract that handles the passing of estates, the combination of insurance, citizenship issues, adoption preferences, etc. Currently we lack the infrastructure to affordably deliver "a la carte" packages; it's the same reason everyone gets the same TOS when installing a particular piece of software. It is not particularly realistic to say that a particular group be denied rights because the infrastructure for delivery isn't ideal.
It's only not realistic because everyone uses this exact same argument every time someone brings this up. We could move slowly towards the correct solution by acknowledging how incorrect the current situation is and fixing it little by little.
Why can't I have an easy way to pass on my estate to someone with all the same tax benefits without having to have sexual relations with that person? Why can't I get insurance options that can be extended to those I cohabitate with regardless of the nature of the relationship beyond the fact that we live together. Why are there not citizen affordances for other relationships such as extending rights to siblings as well? I'm talking exactly about all those same rights the gay community wants. Just like there is no reason many of those rights should be restricted to straight people, there is also no reason that many of those rights should be restricted to two people in a long-term sexual relationship. There's also no reason why we shouldn't be able to pick and choose which rights and obligations we want to opt into or which rights we may want to share with person A and which rights we may want to share with person B.
There is absolutely no reason in this day and age that we can't switch over to a la carte packages over 10-20 years. All you need to do is start offering those options on each of those rights individually and to let all the rights for married couples expire and for those that don't expire, you can work on sunsetting them once a suitable a la carte solution is available.
I understand that argument--and you're not completely wrong--but a) that would require a massive overhaul of our legal system. The whole impetus behind this is that by not being able to be married, LGBT citizens are denied literally thousands of legal rights. That would be a big project. b) Good luck getting our uber-religious society to do so. c) Whether the system is flawed or not, keeping a class of people out of it is certainly not OK.
Oh, I definitely agree that discriminating against a group based on their sexual preference is abhorrent, but I also resent this discussion to some degree because it completely takes away attention from the discussion we should be having and it further legitimizes marriage as something the government should even have involvement in.
For example, if I want to jointly own a home (and only a home with no other possessions jointly shared) with someone, we would not receive a total $500k capital gains exemption on the sale of the home after 5+ years of ownership. Only married people filing taxes jointly get this right. Instead, me and the other person would only be allowed a $250k exemption. How can such a situation possibly be fair? The correct abstraction would have been to allow up to $250k capital gains exemption for each individual on the deed. [0]
At the end of the day, we should be designing laws the way we design software. Strong separation of concerns should be a design goal when drafting legislation.
You do NOT have the right to judge anyone based on "race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty"
You violated Brendan Eich's human rights, it's that simple. Bigot.
Per Article 2 of the UDHR, "political opinions" are a protected class (to use the American terminology).
However, "the right to not be judged or criticized by fellow citizens" is not a right that is outlined by the UDHR. Not as I am reading it anyway. Specifically which article and section details the right that you think Eich is being deprived of?
I'm confused. How the heck did I violate Brendan Eichs human rights? My comment about privileges pertains to the benefits granted to married couples, straight or gay. Marriage rights don't exist, married couples aren't entitled to tax breaks, spousal benefits, etc. those are all privileges that can be repealed by the stroke of a pen and therefore are not rights.
Each one of the rights currently afforded to people in a marriage or civil union should be split up and any two people for whatever reason should be able to opt into some, none or all of those rights.
I'm hoping that one day those pushing for additional rights afforded only to married people, straight or gay, get the exact same treatment that Eich did here.
Marriage shouldn't even be within the purview of the government, only religions.