Earlier this week I posted that the current Democratic Presidential Candidate plan to support civil unions and not same-sex marriage was a bad plan because it wouldn't actually achieve equality. I based that on our experience here in NJ with an almost year-old civil unions law.
Today there's an article based on recent hearings into the civil unions law that supports the idea that having separate statutes for marriage and civil union based on the gender makeup of the couple inherently creates inequality. Here's the top civil rights officer in the state discussing the situation {h/t Blue Jersey):
Civil Rights Director Frank Vespa-Papaleo, who chairs a commission that recently concluded three hearings on how the new law is working, said, "To me as a commissioner, the testimony revealed overwhelmingly that the civil union law has been a failure."
"It is not working as effectively as if the word 'marriage' were used," Vespa-Papaleo said. "That could be controversial. I could lose my job for saying that."
The statute fails, predictably, because it creates two different types of legal couplehood with different language for each. That in itself denotes a difference between the two, and is enough to create all sorts of problems.
If civil unions are the same as marriage, except for the gender makeup of the couples, why not just call it marriage and do it under the same statute?
Insurance companies don't have civil unions in their language, and only provide benefits to married couples. By using different words you give an insurance adjuster the ability to do what they are told is their job: deny benefits for any reason they can. Even if benefits are eventually given, it takes a fight that is not necessary for couples who are married. For example:
Vespa-Papaleo cited the initial refusal of UPS to provide health benefits to the civil union partners of its unionized workers in New Jersey, even though it provides such benefits to married gay couples in Massachusetts. UPS ultimately reversed its position, but Vespa-Papaleo said that was due to persuasion by Corzine, who took up the cause of UPS drivers in New Jersey.
Also, other states don't have to recognize New Jersey's civil unions, even if DOMA were struck down, because the words "civil" and "union" aren't used together when talking about legal family relationships. Instead if you get a civil union in NJ and have similar rights to a married straight couple, it's that much harder to move out of state. Rights to kids, to visit your spouse in the hospital, to make medical decisions, etc., that you enjoyed for years suddenly disappear on vacation or if your job gets transfered out of state.
A national civil union like Barack Obama suggests might cover the issue with states not recognizing civil unions, but will not address the insurance or other issues.
Here's the long and the short of it:
Vespa-Papaleo said civil unions are a "magnificent advance," but the law requires his commission to study whether they are as good as marriage.
"That's not my yardstick; that's the yardstick laid out by the Legislature," he said. By that measure, he said, civil unions have failed.
I have no problem with all this talk about civil unions for the short term as or as a stepping stone to full marriage equality, probably in part because I am legally married and it doesn't affect me personally. But if the goal here is to actually provide equal rights for families in this country, the only way to get there is to have one statute defining the legal joining of two non-related people into a single family unit.
It's called marriage, and has been for many centuries. Let's keep that tradition going and let any two non-related people who want to start a family do it as a married couple.