An interesting proposal on marriage equality

A column in today’s NY Times business section offers what I’ll call a libertarian approach to the same-sex marriage debate — remove marriage from the law completely and call all unions “domestic partnerships” or “civil unions.” Leave the word marriage out of law, with individuals able to call their unions what they believe best describes them.

It is not a perfect compromise — marriage carries a cultural weight that is difficult to ignore– but it gets to the crux of what is, in reality, a religious argument, which means this is a First Amendment debate.

Religious liberty, which is the new call to arms on the right, demands that religions be left free to function without religious interference. It also, to be clear, demands that religion keep out of the affairs of government. The state cannot tell the Catholic Church whom to marry; the church, by the same logic, cannot tell the state what unions to sanction or what to call them.

The various marriage-equality bills out there recognize this. Religious conservatives, however, refuse to. My message to them: Back off and shut up.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet