Nope, I'd call that "glossed over" by his penultimate "more than sleeping arrangements" paragraph. I think we can assume he understands there'd be more work involved than just blotting out all the marriage laws.
My take on it is: The problem is that we have two things--a government-declared shorthand for a bewildering complex of contractual and legal obligations and benefits, and a sacred covenant between, for the sake of argument, a man and a woman--and we call them both the same thing.
My variant on Kinsley's (deliberately simplified for the sake of provocation, I suspect) idea would be to keep at least some of the shorthand, but distinguish it absolutely from marriage. (Vermont's trick of legislating gay marriages but calling them "civil unions" would just about do it, if they called straight marriages the same thing.)
But what do I know--I'm nowhere within shooting range of marriage, civil union, or, to the best of my knowledge, a date for Friday night, so I can't say I've given it considered thought. Mostly I just think Kinsley is fun to read.
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Date: 2003-07-03 10:12 pm (UTC)My take on it is: The problem is that we have two things--a government-declared shorthand for a bewildering complex of contractual and legal obligations and benefits, and a sacred covenant between, for the sake of argument, a man and a woman--and we call them both the same thing.
My variant on Kinsley's (deliberately simplified for the sake of provocation, I suspect) idea would be to keep at least some of the shorthand, but distinguish it absolutely from marriage. (Vermont's trick of legislating gay marriages but calling them "civil unions" would just about do it, if they called straight marriages the same thing.)
But what do I know--I'm nowhere within shooting range of marriage, civil union, or, to the best of my knowledge, a date for Friday night, so I can't say I've given it considered thought. Mostly I just think Kinsley is fun to read.