New Hampshire Governor Lynch signs Civil Union Bill into Law

[michaeledward]

This morning, Governor Lynch made New Hampshire the fourth State in the nation to recognize Civil Unions. The law will go into effect on January 1, 2008.

An irony to this is that the legalization of 'marriage' for same sex couples in Massachusetts has dramatically decreased the demand for civil unions in those states that do recognize this legal position (VT, NJ, & CT).

 

[tellner]

Good for New Hampshire. If marriage is a sacred religious institution then opposition to same-sex couples marrying is a religious thing and should not affect the State at all. If it's not, then as long as two women or two men marrying doesn't interfere with your civil rights the correct response is to butt out. For those who get all crinkly and panicky about gay sex, take heart. Combine Lesbian Bed Death with the drop in sex that accompanies marriage and they'll all be celibate in a few years.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

The separate term is good. It retains the sanctity of Britney Spears 80 minute marriage.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Actually....I think it would be really nice if straight couples stopped getting married, and opted for "Unions" themselves.

 

[tellner]

Here's my honest opinion...

The problem is that we're mixing a religious rite with a civil contract. Separate the two. Let the churches marry whomever they want. If your sect won't marry left-handed Albanian chiropractors, cool. What they do in the privacy of their churches is entirely their business. It has no legal standing whatsoever. Have a completely unrelated civil union contract specifying number of parties, duration, obligations, and so on. Any two (or three, or four...) fully informed legally competent, unencumbered adults can sign the boilerplate, pay their fees and enjoy the rights and responsibilities.

Back in the day there was a difference between posting the banns and having the priest perform a ceremony. Go back further and a marriage contract was more a limited merger of the assets of two families than anything else. There was a lot of wisdom in that approach.

 

[crushing]

Good for N.H. Unfortunately, I don't see my home state doing the same anytime soon. Like Oregon, at the same time my great blue state voted for John Kerry, we also passed an anti-gay marriage ban. Very, very, disappointing.

tellner,
I'd put the drop in sex for married couples myth right up there with the one about eight years of peace and prosperity.

 

[CoryKS]

'Lesbian Bed Death'? Is that another Al Jourgenson side project?

 

[tellner]

The drop in sex in married couples is actually pretty well established by the scientists who build their careers studying peoples' naughty bits. It seems that gay men have the most nookie, straights are in the middle, and lesbian couples have the least sex with a severe drop off (especially among the Sapphists) about two years into the relationship.

 

[crushing]

Global sex survey dispels misconceptions

British researchers found that people aren't losing their virginity at ever younger ages, married people have the most sex, and there is no firm link between promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/01/europe/EU_MED_Sex_Study.php
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10412&feedId=online-news_rss20

Married couples make love 98 times per year.
Single folks are having sex the least at 49 times a year.

http://marriage.about.com/cs/sexualstatistics/a/sexstatistics.htm

 

[Sukerkin]

Interesting statistics there, Crushing.

Some of the general trends I can attest are borne out by my own experiences and some come as a surprise (yeah, off-colour pun ... er no ... that one was an accident ).

It's not exactly rocket-science for researchers to work out that couples will have a more active sex life than singles but the news that the 'youth of today' are actually being sensible raised an eyebrow and the supposed lack of a link between promiscuity and STD's I would have to say is counter-logical.

I suppose I have no choice now but to actually read the research rather than just spouting knee-jerk opinions :lol:.

 

[Steel Tiger]

The idea that marriage is a sacred and religious is an interesting one. The idea of a union or contract between two people is much older than our monlithic, monotheistic religions and it was usually not tied to religion.

Polytheistic priests had way too much to do to worry about sanctifying a relationship between two individuals (there were all those sacrifices to make to ensure 'God' didn't destroy something for one thing). Among the Celtic and Germanic peoples marriage was a civil ceremony with significant contractual obligations on both parties.

It looks to me that with the rise in popularity of monotheism around the Mediterranean, the new religions "acquired" various functions to put themselves in a position of community and cultural power, just as they usurped religious festivals (Christianity was new, it had no holy days or festivals). Marriage was one of these. The Catholic Church made it one of the sacrements, thus it became sacred, and thus something that only a priest could do. That is a powerful tool for control.

A couple of thousand years of this way of thinking has significantly changed our view on marriage. It has become very closely associated with religion, even though one does not have to be married by a priest anymore. or even refer to a religious organisation. So close that many cannot conceive of a marriage or similar union contradicting other aspects of the Bible (like admonitions against homosexuality).

The governor of New Hampshire has taken a great step forward with this law in that he has recognised that religion and marriage do not have to be the same thing.

 

[OUMoose]

Married couples make love 98 times per year.
Single folks are having sex the least at 49 times a year.

Ummm.. for us single folk, does that count with a partner?