Quote Originally Posted by TwistedTails View Post
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1. The Governments and laws of the United States of America are by demand of the people blind to the race, sex, or age of a citizen or group of citizens hereafter called the people.
That would be nice, although it is not yet the status quo. One day, perhaps the government will actually be required to be race and gender blind, but not yet. As for age-blind, that has some interesting side effects for liquor and driving laws, not to mention Medicare and Social Security...

2. By demand of the people all of the Governments of the United States of America maintain a separation of church and state. therefore the all encompassing term Marriage, needs to be separated into its two components. For clarity the term Marriage will be used to define the religious aspect of marriage and Civil Union to define the governments.
There, we can agree: the government has no business getting involved in "marriage". I'm not convinced the existence of "civil union" is necessary or even desirable, though. If we agree it is wrong to discriminate on grounds of age, gender and race, how is it acceptable to discriminate on marital status?

4. The governments institution of Civil Union must by the peoples demands for a racial and gender blind government constitute a union between two citizens.
Fortunately, marriage is not restricted to citizens: I know plenty of people who would be rather upset by that new discrimination!

On a more serious note, do you believe civil unions should be restricted by age, relationship between people, number of people...? Should, say, Frasier Crane and his father get these benefits, since they cohabit and would probably benefit financially? What about the three member "couple" I know in England - should the three of them get this status?