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Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Indiana Law - Fort Wayne editorial recommends civil unions
The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel has an editorial today titled "Time for civil unions." Some quotes:
Indiana ought to take a cue from the state Court of Appeals and acknowledge that families are changing, as are the ways in which children can be conceived. There’s a straightforward, fair way to clarify the way the law treats gays, lesbians and their children: Enact a civil-union law that would provide most of the same legal, financial and parental rights as married couples. * * *But no matter how long two men or two women have lived together, couples as surely as any two heterosexuals who marry, they are still denied most benefits granted to married couples by legal tradition hundreds of years old. What they miss out on extends far beyond adoption and parental rights.
The members of same-sex couples can’t bequeath property to each other with the same tax breaks that benefit married couples. A man or woman in a long-term homosexual relationship doesn’t have the legal standing of a spouse to bring lawsuits or to make life-and-death decisions for an ill partner. They’re not entitled to family leave if one must care for the other during an illness. They miss out on the other financial breaks – from lower income-tax rates to cheaper auto-insurance – that make life easier for married couples.
It’s clear from polls and from results of referendums in other states last month that most Americans aren’t ready to accept extending marriage to same-sex couples. But it’s also clear that even the country’s most powerful conservatives – President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, for example – are increasingly supportive of allowing states to craft their own plans to extend many of the practical benefits of marriage to same-sex couples through civil unions.
Certainly it’s a just development to extend these benefits to gay couples. But it’s more than simply right; it’s in society’s best interest to encourage long-term, committed relationships. * * *
Gay marriage is a step neither Indiana nor the country is ready for. There are too many questions about it, and it’s the kind of change that should come through legislative recognition of societal evolution, not judicial fiat. But the state’s lawmakers ought to make it easier for gays and lesbians to live the best lives they can, including legally recognized partners.
Some sort of civil-union law in Indiana still would alienate many. Gay activists probably would insist that anything short of marriage still relegates them to second-class citizenship. Some opponents of gay rights would be dismayed by a civil-unions law, because they believe homosexual relationships of any kind are inherently sinful.
Civil unions could be a good compromise. Creating them should be as urgent for legislators as passing a constitutional amendment specifically defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 1, 2004 04:48 PM
Posted to Indiana Law