Pendant:

It's actually 1 in 2 marriages. The divorce rate is currently hovering somewhere around 51%. So much for the sanctity...

R0bert,
"I find it rather sad that some are so determined to try and force others to live to their own standards ...with a concept like consenting human adults"
If this is really your guiding principle, why stop at homosexual unions.Surely we could find human adults who consent to group marriages ( M+M+M , W+W+W, M+W+W, W+M+M -mix & match-whatever takes your fancy)Or what about Brother+Sister, Father+Daughter combinations.
If consenting adults is the shibboleth, wouldn't the above also pass muster?

Pedant,
You indicate that the idea of consent is sacrosanct.
However we have seen;
The legal establishment willing to "modify" consent to accommodate lobby groups re rape & domestic violence. And we know unions/marriages initiated overseas, where consent requirements are different or non-existent are recognised.

saintfletcher
1) Don't take the dog analogy too seriously.
2) " this is about the status of a commitment between 2 consenting adults of the same gender. The issue is not about adoption, or the couples having children"
Do you really believe that this campaign will stop at civil unions?

You are right Horus, we can't take anything you say seriously at all. You make stupid statements that I wouldn't repeat to my Grandmother. Your ideas go to a level of perversity many of us never really considered. Have you looked for help, BTW? There are good doctors to help you with disturbing inclinations. Frued would not accept that "I was just joking" rubbish, you have a problem!

You deliberately toss the arguement into rediculous tangents, and will stop at nothing to put down gay relationships. Then your mind goes to places that don't belong in this forum.

In your reply to rObert, I should have predicted this in, now he mentions bloody incest. Christ! This is irrelevant to the civil union proposal between two consenting gay adults.

In your reply to Pedant, I only knew that sex abuse charges were changed by magistrates in "panic defence" plea's, when groups of poofter bashers and church group lobbied and ensured that their murderers got away with this sex crime. The accused claimed that after they raped the "poofter", they panicked, and had to kill him. Again, irrelavant to civil union.

In my own reply, the answer is yes. The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby is only interested in civil union on this issue, and all those other stupid senarios are of no interest to these lobby groups. The hypothetical is nonsense. Pets, children, incest, furniture, in line for marriage is not going to happen, they are not even legal as relationships, nor should they be.

To those concerned, yes, civil union is the term to use, keep it away from the church. Both interests want their distance from each other.
Thanx Pedant, at 4.00am, I do typos sometimes: affect. This weary father gets woken up at all hours, and I sometimes visit while the baby sleeps. I'm just a straight dude that makes a million mistakes a day, especially trying to raise kids.

'Civil Union' is an interesting term, and helps define the issues. Married and de facto hetero couples have advantages over gay couples particularly when it comes to financial benefits and decisions over health / division of property and the like.

But here is where it gets interesting: Some mention has been made of brother / sister relationships in terms of incest: But if we take sex out of the equation, that is: have a brother and sister, or two brothers or two sisters adopting a domestic relationship that did not involve sex, but including sharing domestic chores, shared finances, even the possible adoption of children or the nurturing of their own children from previous relationships, why should these couples not be able to also enter into 'civil unions'.

There are hetero couples who whilst married have never consummated their relationship in a sexual way, or who haven't had sex in decades. They are, in the eyes of the law, just as married as another couple who are bonking their brains out every day and night. Sex does not make a union, so should sexuality?

May I suggest that any couple who wish to enter into a civil union be allowed to, so long as their behaviour does not contravene any other law. That is, if siblings wish to form a family, without sex, but with the privileges of marriage, then why not? The same goes for any other couple, straight or gay. The same could be said for polygamous relationships.

The peril of course is that with civil unions comes civil divorce / civil settlements and parenting issues. As an example, if a couple, of whatever persuasion, is raising the biological child of one of them, but both are acting as parents, what rights and responsibilities does the non-biological parent have?

If in a relationship one partner stays home and the other works, when no children are involved, and the relationship breaks down, who will get what? Will the stay at home persons contributions be taken into account or have they just been ‘kept’ by the working partner?

Re the idea of any couple being able to enter into civil unions, the idea of exclusivity immediately springs to mind. Marriage is meant to exclude other close / sexual relationships from being formed outside of the marriage. That is why adultery was considered to be a legal ground for divorce. Of course the law never stopped an adulterous incident from taking place, it just made it more difficult, and costly should the adulterers be found out. In some places adultery was also a capital offence, and is still punishable by imprisonment in some US States.

Laws against prostitution were, aside from being in sync with religious laws and teaching, intended to make sure that for anyone to enjoy sex they had to be married.

With the institution of no-fault divorce, and no fault financial and parenting settlement, so long as both sides get a fair share and the children’s best interests are dealt with by law, adultery has not been as much an issue to the law.

So what protection and value is there in civil unions / marriages anyway? Neither can be considered to be sacrosanct. Neither will be protected by the law by forcing participants who have entered into these relationships voluntarily and with informed consent from actually respecting the ‘conditions’ of the relationship.

Recent legal developments in Britain have meant that even if a couple, in that country, have barely moved in together after marriage when the relationship breaks up, then the person who brings less, in terms of finances and contributions to the relationship can walk out with a large chunk of the other persons assets.

There was the case of an English multi-millionaire who married a women of ordinary means. The relationship broke up after two years and the law awarded her 25% of his fortune, because of an expectation that by marrying this guy she would live in luxury for the rest of her life.

These decisions may have a flow on effect to this country and its legal system.

So, what protection can be put in place to maintain ‘civil unions’?

Hamlet, very well put. I'd being trying to think of appropriate wording for an answer to the incest question along the lines that you used. You have done a great job of it. You have covered off the public issue very well.

In regard to the sexual aspect of incest there seem to be two major issues which would concern me
- the genetic risks if children are conceived.
- the increased opportunity for consent not to be an informed free will consent but rather an engineered consent.

I also have a significant cultural bias against incest - not necessarily defensible apart from the previous items but something I have not had a need to question in depth.

As for the group civil unions thing I have not seen any research results to support the contention put by some that it is more harmfull to children than other arrangements which are currently supported and I suspect that it would be much healthier than a lot of single parenting. It's a difficult task to raise children on your own. I'm not sure what the welfare and tax implications of group civil unions are - that is really a different issue.

R0bert