Civil Unions for Same Sex Siblings!

So, I was just thinking that if "civil unions" are actually what the religious right are trying to spin them as, then the religious right is promoting something that runs counter to "family values."

Bear with me for a minute here, since I'm still trying to work this out.

See, it's like this. "Marriage" is the thing that, it seems to me, some people (man, I wish I could use the term "The Moral Majority" because that's exactly what I want to use) equate with white weddings in a cathedral between a fresh-faced girl and boy who intend to live with each other "til death do us part" even if it kills them. So here's this term "civil union," which is being used by these same people (as well as, oddly enough, proponents of same-sex marriage) to mean something that the law allows but the cathedral isn't really very fond of. I'm not sure who coined the term, but I think it's become a word that is often used to differentiate between what good, god-fearing heterosexuals have and what those Other People get when they go pick up a license and the law lets them do their sinning sinning sinner worst.

I think that's a terrible differentiation, but I'm seeing it happening, so let's go with it for a minute. Let's say that a "marriage" is what you get when you are joined before God by your [insert religious figure of choice here]. A "civil union" is just something that you get so that you and your partner of choice are bound before the law and can therefore participate in the legal benefits of marriage even if your local [insert place of worship here] urges its members to make the sign of the cross whenever they pass by your front lawn.

Bearing that in mind: The other day, one of my research scientists came into my office and we were chatting. He's decided to go freelance, so he was turning in his letter of resignation and giving me the research materials he's been working with so that I could put them back into the system and file them away for the next guy.

Totally out of the blue he said, "You know, I got married yesterday."

Turns out, he and his long-time girlfriend decided that, since he was going freelance, they'd finally get married. Their relationship is pretty stable (they've been together for 20 years), and they honestly hadn't really been thinking about ever getting married, but the truth of the matter was that if he wanted to go freelance it just made sense. She could put him on her health insurance, and after all, they are getting older, so if anything happened (heaven forbid), etc., etc. So what he really did was get Civil Unionized.

Now, I read romance novels, and I watch movies. I also live in the real world (on good days), so I know there have been books and movies about straight people pretending to be gay for benefits (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry recently--so silly, and harmful to the cause on a lot of levels), and also books and movies about "convenient" marriages (Green Card being one of my favorites). But that's just because...well...it's perfectly possible to form a legal, contractual relationship for reasons other than love.

The entire premise of these movies circulated around the idea that these people were getting into this "marriage"--actually a civil union, obviously--for shady reasons, and the authorities were onto them, darn it! But in point of fact, it's not that hard to pull the wool over the authorities' eyes. Frankly, the authorities really don't have the time or resources to care that much. Well, there's the immigration thing, about which they're pretty serious (yes, I had a husband from Pakistan). But otherwise, seriously--it's not like you can prove that a marriage is valid by putting a camera in the bedroom and making sure the couple is having conjugal relations x times every month. Talk about your tax dollars at work? Sheesh.

In fact, if you look at history, it seems that getting married for Love is nice and all, but it's better to get married because you are two people who will function better together as a team than as individuals, and if you have a healthy appreciation and respect for each other then that's a whole lot more useful than if you have the hots for each other 100% of the time. In a perfect world, you'd have both, obviously. But if you had to choose...well. Go practical. Would that be a "Civil Union" and not a marriage?

Pretty sure it wouldn't be, but if it were...here's my point about families.

Let's say that my bestest friend in the world and I were roomies. And let's also say that, for some reason or other, she decided that she wanted to work on becoming a writer full-time. Now, I love and respect her, and if she decided that she wanted to clean my house, walk my dog, make my food, do the shopping--you know, all that stuff--instead of paying rent, then I might just go for that. But let's also say that she needed health insurance.

Okay, we hop up to Connecticut, get ourselves a civil union, and live happily ever after...for a year or two. She gets settled, finds herself a good union-provided plan, and we can split up. It was as successful as a lot of marriages in that it lasted as long as a lot of them, and we didn't even argue about who gets the CD collection.

I could do that with a male partner, as well. Not that I'm saying this is my goal for the next few years, but it would be possible.

However, let's say that my BFF is my sister. Which is probably about the truth.

My sister would like to become a working musician, but right now she's got a full-time job as a professor of music at a private university. She makes good money, has great benefits, and her pension plan is growing. But let's say she wanted to move back to the NYC area, and I offered to help her out by forming a civil union with her and letting her use my health insurance for a while. Let's also comment, here, about the fact that my sister hasn't ever married, and she would really rather like to adopt a child--a civil union with me could help her there, too! My child is an honor student! I'm a great mommy!

Yeah...you see where I'm going with that. The same would go for my daughter when she's over 25 and struggling through law school, or say my mother if (heaven forbid) she were alone and her health insurance couldn't cover something that went wrong.

I can't see any reason why such a civil union shouldn't be perfectly legal. Obviously you could still only have one per person at any time, so it's not like I'd be trying to get away with supporting everybody, or anything. And I suppose that if civil unions really are just about extending the legal rights of marriage into relationships that aren't between one man/one woman, then there's really only one argument against it.

Because, obviously, I'm not having sex with my family members, so it's not a real partnership.

Okay, I don't believe it's that simple. It's just that that's the bottom line for people who talk about "civil unions" between same sex couples as though they're somehow different from marriages. As though a "marriage" is a higher thing because it's sealed by God, while a "civil union" is just legally approved sex. It's therefore inferior to marriage, and not only because it's the law justifying sin, but because it's approved or disapproved by the rampant mass of idiots in any old democracy rather than [insert divinity of choice].

Okay, so "marriage" is a specific type of partnership, between two specific people. It's not purely a legal agreement between a man and a woman that she will bear his children and he will support them, but it is a legally binding agreement and therefore a legally determined right. Individual rights as determined by law are not to be dictated over the pulpit. The things your [insert religious figure of choice] tells you should, in theory, be limited to instruction on how to make the world a better place and yourself a better person. These things should have nothing to do with how you impose yourself upon the rights of others. Your religion is a subjective choice, not objective law, which is why we (theoretically) have separation of [insert expletive of choice] church and state.

So, yes, the "Civil Union" portions of the marriage equation are an issue of law, and they do represent the part of marriage that is legally binding. But in the end you have to talk about marriage as a whole and not wishy washy it into something that sounds like it belongs to the churches while the unwashed masses can decide lesser things like whether the sinners of the world have the legal right to provide health insurance for each other. It's not about that. It's about saying that all people should have equal rights--not just under the law, but as human beings. The part of marriage for which there is no real other name--though we try to define it as love, partnership, commitment, and so forth--is also a right, and not just a religious ceremony. The thing is, though, that since it's not just a legal right, it's a human right, some people start to get confused about where moralizing ends and being ethical begins. We as a country like to pat ourselves on the back for the way we try to be fair about legal rights (well, in the past half century at least), but clearly we're still working on human rights--especially those of us who seem to believe that we, and not God, have the obligation to define which of us, exactly, are "created equal."

So, forgive my modest proposal, if you will. I submit that there are people who want to retain "marriage" as a church-related concept so that they can vote against giving it to a certain segment of the population. For this reason, they use the term "civil union," to relate a concept that is just a legal frame for something that isn't fully marriage, but is merely a legal tie. This allows them to believe that a "civil union" isn't a human right, it's just a matter of health insurance, and therefore they can choose to deny it to people in the same way they could choose to vote for or against a budget proposition.

Most people go into a marriage for love, not because there are legal advantages to it (and actually in a lot of cases it actually isn't a particularly sound financial proposition). I'm honestly tired of listening to people debate the issue as though it's all about being able to visit someone in the hospital. Cut the crap about civil unions and the law. Let's just let it all be about the true partnership that the word "marriage" represents. That partnership can't be expressed by any alternate word because it's both incredibly complex and incredibly basic. So basic, many people can't imagine living without having it as not just an opportunity, but a milestone to which their lives will undoubtedly lead them. That basic, human (not the legal) right is what is being denied to individuals by people who take their "morals" into the voting booth with them but leave their ethics behind.

If I had any power in this world, I would exhort religious leaders to encourage their flocks to love one another. Certainly there will always be groups that believe that on some objective level there is "sin" in certain types of sexuality, but since the majority of these religions also preach love and tolerance, there should never be a majority of voters who believe that it is not only their right, but their obligation to deny people the opportunity to commit themselves in love to their chosen mate. This should especially be true if people don't use terminology that encourages them to believe that what they're denying has less value than a "true" marriage.

And if they can't work that out in their heads, then they should bloody well let me have a civil union with my sister, dammit!

Jumping off a Bridge to Please My Husband

Okay, believe it or not, I probably hate chain emails more than anybody I know. Except my husband, who is just plain more of a hater than I am. But anyway, this naturally means that I have several friends who love chain emails and are constantly forwarding them to me.

Now, I actually get a kick out of the ones that spread rumors, request cards for kids who have been dying for ten years, things like that. They give me the opportunity to run to snopes and check it out. It's a fun way to take a break from your day.

But today I got one that really made me wonder: do people actually read these things before sending them?

This was entitled "we is friends" [sic], and had some sort of pseudo-lolcat picture in it. It claimed that you needed to forward it to (excuse me...copypasta) "everyone you don't want to lose in '08 including me if you care". Which all by itself sounds like more of a threat than a promise.

Yeah, I think a chain email should be the way through which my friends determine that I care about them. Makes perfect sense, yes? Chain emails say so much that you just can't say in any other way.

Or maybe "wouldn't say." For example, under the fakelolcat, there was a particularly saccharine little set of phrases (eg. "You smile, I smile" etc.) ending with "You jump off a bridge, I gonna miss your emails" [sic]. It concludes by assuring me that "tomorrow's not promised."

So...let me get this straight. A friend has just sent me this email that tells me that if I don't return it (in addition to forwarding it), not only does it mean that I don't care about her, but I might lose her during '08 because she's likely to jump off a bridge? Plus, by not sending the email I would be losing the opportunity to allow several other friends to likewise save me from the same suicidal tendencies I didn't know I have?

Wow. Heavy burden.

Um. I mentioned before that my husband hates chain email more than I do, right? (Excuse me...checking...ok, yes I did.)

Obviously, I sent it to him. Because...you know...uh...not because I like causing trouble. Totally because I don't want to lose him! Seriously! And then, much to my surprise and dismay, he sent me a text cursing me in the most horrible way possible and informing me that I'd better find another person to go onto my "forwarding chain email" lists or else.

He didn't return the email though.

I'm sure he will.

Sure of it.

Because he loves me.

He doesn't want to lose me in '08, I'm sure.

Did I mention that the George Washington Bridge is just north of here?

What?? It's True!!

The following is a fable, but it's true--as all fables should be.

Once upon a time, there was a child who watched far, far too many courtroom dramas. Over and over, every day (sometimes 12 times a day if TNT was running a marathon), she would see someone put their hand on a Bible and swear to tell "The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth."

This was a fascinating concept. What did it mean? How did it work? Nothing But The Truth was easy--it just meant don't lie. But what was the difference between The Truth and The Whole Truth? And how was The Whole Truth related to, say, "facts," which seemed to be what the judge, jury, and various prosecuting and defending attorneys wanted either revealed or concealed?

And...seriously...would the world be a better place if only everyone Told The Truth all the time?

One day, as she was walking home from school, she decided that she would begin a campaign to improve the world by telling The Whole Truth. She began this campaign as soon as her mother asked her, "What did you do in school today, sweetie?"

Now, usually, she would say something like, "Nothing much," or, "Oh, you know, the usual," or, "My teacher is so unfair!! Do you know what she made us do?" But this time, she knew she had to Tell The Truth, so she thought very hard and then began, "Well, first I took off my coat. No, wait. First I walked in the front door. That's right. I walked in the front door, and then I walked to the classroom, but before I got there Eric Iverson stuck his tongue out at me, and he's gross, so I ignored him, but then he followed me down the hall to the classroom, and when we got there I...no, wait. I think that before Eric I said hi to Ariel. Yeah, Ariel was first, and then...."

She went on like this for a few minutes before her mother figured out that it wasn't either going to get more interesting or less detailed. At that point, her poor mother wasn't sure how to stop the flow of information. She didn't want to say, "That's nice dear, but it's really not very interesting and I actually didn't want to know that much," because that wouldn't be supportive of the poor dear. She also didn't want to ask if anything important had happened, because it's very rare that anything happens in the life of a fifth-grader that is important on a large scale, but for some reason almost everything is important on a small scale, and one doesn't wish to negate that 11-year-old sense of wonder, does one?

In the end, the poor mother settled for interrupting with, "All this talking has to be making you thirsty. Would you like a snack?"

At this, the girl admitted that, in fact, she wasn't thirsty, but she was tired of talking (which was the truth), and she would really like a cookie (which she thought was the truth). Besides, even though a lot of things happened, when you started talking about them they all sounded pretty boring (an ultimate truth).

After she was done with the cookie (cookies--she had three, so she admitted that saying she would like "a cookie" hadn't been true because she would actually like several more cookies, and if her mother weren't watching she probably would have eaten three more) she gave the matter a little more thought. All night she was very quiet, and when she watched her courtroom dramas, she paid very close attention to everything that was said and done in the pursuit of The Truth.

The next day, when she came home from school and her mother asked her, "What did you do in school today, sweetie?" the girl believed she had the correct answer. She wouldn't tell The Whole Truth, she'd just summarize and tell the interesting parts.

She said: "Well, I went to class, and talked to my friends, and did work and stuff. And at recess Eric pulled my hair."

At which point her mother interrupted and said, "Yes, sweetie. Eric's mother called me as soon as he got home. She told me that you'd kicked him and punched him in the ear."

"Yes, I did," she said, trying her best to be truthful without going overboard. "I'm glad I didn't punch him in the nose, because if he'd started bleeding he would have had to go to the school nurse, and then we would have gotten sent to the principal's office for fighting."

"But honey, why did you punch Eric in the ear?"

Now the little girl knew that telling the truth was going to be a difficult thing to do. This was where the people in the courtroom dramas always had a tough time. And besides, she knew her mother wasn't going to like the answer.

"It was an accident, but he doesn't know that," she finally said--which was True.

"But why did it happen?"

"Because I..." she wanted to say because I hate him, but that wasn't exactly true. There were a lot of people she really didn't like, but she'd only punched Eric. She also could have said, because he deserved it, but that was just her opinion. The facts were that she had punched him because he'd sneaked up behind her and stuck his hand down the back of her panties, and when she spun around, she just happened to hit the side of his head hard enough to hurt him. Then he'd pulled her hair and said that if she told anybody what he'd done, he'd make sure they knew she hit him, and then she'd be in trouble, too. That was when she'd kicked him in the shin. She knew that was just stupid, but if she went to the teacher, Eric would probably just deny everything, and besides, they'd all have to go to the principal's office, and the whole thing would upset her parents. And that was when she figured out how to answer the question.

"Because he did something I didn't like, and so I hit him, and kicked him, and that made him stop without getting everybody upset and causing a lot of trouble." Which was all true, except that she didn't repeat the part where it had been an accident. She hoped that her mom would forget about that part, because if Eric found out it was an accident, he might not be afraid of her, and he'd probably do it again. Because he was that sort of boy.

"You don't think hitting him caused trouble?" Her mom looked very worried.

"I think hitting him caused trouble, and I'm really sorry his mom called you," this was True, but not The Whole Truth, since she didn't add that she wasn't sorry that she'd hit him in the first place. "But I also think he won't do it again because now he's scared of me."

"You're going to have to tell me what he did, sweetheart."

That was when The Whole Truth got really annoying.

Because she was basically a good little girl, she broke down and told her mother everything. And, as she suspected, this caused a great deal of trouble all around. For about a week everyone yelled at everyone else, and in the end nothing was solved except that Eric had to promise her that he would never do anything like that again, and she had to promise that she wouldn't hit him again unless he deserved it. Both sets of parents were angry and upset with each other, and although the problem was "solved," nobody felt very good about it.

Besides, not everybody learned their lesson. Oh, Eric pretty much left her alone after that, but some people just aren't that smart.

A few days later, when she came home from school, her mother asked, "So, sweetie, what did you do in school today?"

Her daughter, shocked by this turn of events, couldn't answer for a minute. Seriously--why was her mom torturing her this way? Particularly since she was still trying to Tell The Truth, and at this point she couldn't help but believe that her mom couldn't handle The Truth.

So she said: "Mom, a lot of things happened. Some of them I don't want you to know about, because I don't want you to know about the rules I break. Some of them you don't want to know about because you don't want to know how stupid I can sometimes be. But when it comes right down to it, The Truth is that you don't really want to know what I did in school today because it's either pretty boring or really annoying. And honestly, Mom, you only ask because you think if you don't ask, you'll be a bad mother or something. Trust me, Mom, that's just crazy.

"So let's make a deal. I'll tell you what I think you should know, and if I say I don't want to talk about it, let's just not talk about it. Okay?"

Which, of course, didn't work at all. Her mom still asks her "What did you do today," and she still finds most of the results really boring--and often she's not really listening anyway. Sometimes, though, she even presses for details she really would rather not know about. All in all, it's enough to make a Teller of The Truth wish should could just make up a good story every now and then.

And the moral of the story is: You can tell the truth. You can tell the whole truth. You can tell nothing but the truth. But never, ever, tell a relative truth.