Civil Unions 2

My esteemed co-Bearflagger, the BoiFromTroy, comments on my earlier post about civil unions in which I bring up a number of policy objections to the idea of civil unions. My objections largely center around the (in my mind) high likelyhood that civil unions will allow people to take advantage of the many benefits that are now (rightly or wrongly) restricted to married people, such as:

Well what's to prevent me from civilly unioning with my roommate to get free health coverage from his work and to save money on taxes? Or, for that matter, what's to keep me from unioning with a family member or a business partner for similar financial reasons? Once the financial transaction in question is completed, we could simply dissolve the union, thereby freeing ourselves to form other unions as it became advantageous.

Would civil unions convey legal spousal privilege? If so, then criminals could simply union to avoid testifying against each other. Likewise, such privilege could be used by parents unioning with their children to cover sexual abuse. The list of potential problems seems endless to me, and I don't see any clear criteria that could be used to draw a line.

Mr. BFT responds:

So first, I have to say this...so what?!?

Nothing is stopping a criminal man and a criminal woman from marrying in order to avoid the need to testify, yet no one is talking about eliminating spousal privilege...

Nothing is stopping any man from marrying a woman in order to avoid inheritance taxes...

This is entirely true, but since the vast majority of criminals are male (80%-90%), the problem of spousal privilege being used to shield criminal activity isn't very widespread. As for inheritance taxes, you can't marry a close relative (such as your daughter) to pass a large estate to her tax-free.

Actually Mike Williams' arguments AGAINST civil unions are actually a case FOR marriage. Under a civil unions regime...or domestic partnerships as it is known in California...it is sometimes hard to distinguish who can qualify for such a partnership.

When it first offered DP benefits, Princeton University was involved in a kerfuffle over whether heterosexual domestic partners also qualified for benefits.

Under California's Domestic Partner regime, the only permissible domestic partnerships among heterosexual couples are when one partner is over 65 and the other is over 18 yeard old. In order to avoid an unscrupulous May/December couple from saving on taxes, there should be no civil unions...make them get married, just like a regular heterosexual couple. Allow gay marriage and this is no longer a problem.

I don't see any distinction between gay marriage and civil unions as far as policy goes; even those touting civil unions recognize that they're just marriages under a different name. If homosexuals are allowed to marry, what's to prevent the exact same scenario I described above from happening between criminal partners, roommates, family members, and so forth? Is there going to be a "gay litmus test" that requires applicants to prove they're gay? If homosexuals can marry, why not siblings? Why not parents and children (who are of age)? The only possible objections are based on socially-recognized morality and special-benefit policy objectives, both of which gay marriage proponents want to throw out the window.

The fact of the matter is that bisecting society and limiting special-benefit couplings is critical to the practicality of maintaining those special benefits. If civil unions and/or unrestricted marriage are brought about, it will spell the eventual demise of special privilege for the married -- which may not be a bad thing; I haven't made up my mind yet. The high probability of this sea-change should be part of the debate.