An aborted rant

Unless you've been totally ignoring the media, you'll probably be aware that Californian gays have today been given the right to marry. That's very nice. However, this topic has been driving me nuts for the last while that it's been in the media, because I'm not in favour of gay marriage, nor any kind of legally-binding marriage at all, for that matter.

The Polyamorous Misanthrope has nicely pre-empted the rant I was going to do about it sometime this week here:

For myself, I’d like to see a disconnect between the legal institution of marriage and the social behaviors of romance.  We humans are social creatures and I think it’s important for the legal structures to recognize and support the very natural human desire to form partnerships for mutual benefit.  However, the whole romance thing is really muddying a lot of the waters.

I’d like to see cohabitation and parenting contracts that specifically exclude the concept of a romantic relationship, which marriage is presumed to be right now.  (i.e. “I don’t give a damn if it’s Twoo Wuv or not.  The kids need to be taken care of, and the damn bills need to be paid!”)

I don't know about "cohabitation contracts" per se, but I do think creating financial/property contracts or trusteeships should be a matter of registering standardised forms with an authority for a standard fee. So too with guardianships, legal and health powers of attorney, legal next-of-kin/beneficiaries and so on and so forth. At present, other than being het and getting married, the only way you can get such things drawn-up is to pay a lawyer umpteen squillion an hour to get it done on a custom basis.

If people want to re-enact all that stuff about "woman as chattel" or have a religious (or other) ceremony for their relationship, great, go to it. But that ceremony should not be of legal significance, and the partners should still have to specifically assign the rights they want to give to their partners using the standard format.

But you should be able to choose who you want to assign those rights to, no matter how many (except perhaps with powers of attorney, which might require only one individual), what genders, and whether or not you happen to be shagging them.

Some interesting comments in the polyamory thread on the post, including surelars' opinion that preferring a different partnership model shouldn't preclude being in favour of gay marriage, in terms of aligning the level of rights across the queer/het divide. I personally feel suspicious that fighting so hard to join that particular club might end up meaning that the club way will become the only way - that rights for partners who choose not to get married might end up being eroded. It hasn't appeared to have happened yet in countries that have enacted some kind of gay marriage/domestic partnership scheme, but I'm definitely watching that space.