Recently, the pope has come out in favor of civil unions for homosexual couples. I have been in favor of this idea for many years, and I was in favor of it before Obergefell v. Hodges.
But to be clear, I was not in favor of this simply for homosexual couples. I was advocating replacing civil marriage with civil unions. These unions would have the same legal benefits of a marriage (inheritance, visitation, health proxy, filing jointly, etc.) without being a marriage. It would be a civil partnership available to any two people regardless of their sex or consanguinity. This means a man and a woman, a man and a man, a man and his mother, a brother and sister, etc., could get a civil union.
This would have a couple of benefits.
- It would provide the benefits of marriage to any two people who want it.
- It would take sexual activity out of the equation. What you do in the privacy of your own home is your own business.
- It would take the state out of marriages. This means no licensing requirements to get married.
You would have a choice. Get married and get a civil union. Get married without a civil union. Get a civil union without getting married. Do neither.
This would leave the churches to decide who to marry. They could decide to marry only one man and one woman (the Catholic Church), or they could decide to marry a man and a man, a woman and a woman, a man and two women, three women, the possibilities are endless!
Had this been in place, we might never have had the SCOTUS redefine marriage to mean nothing at all.