Rethinking Civil Unions

Some of you may have noticed that statistics from France show that nearly half the civil unions performed there involve straight couples. In other words, civil unions are not just for gays and lesbians. I have no idea what the statistics are for our ruder nation, but I can say this: my grandmother, my mother, my wife and my daughter formed pacts with their partners at city hall. That's four generations in a row.

Perhaps that was because none of us had money. My family has been here since the Revolution without making it out of the working class.

I should mention that certain of my family's "registered partnerships," as some call them, were more civil than others. My grandmother, who had numerous informal male friends, would often redden her cheeks with blush and visit people she'd grown fond of in the afternoons, but she was civil. She always had supper on the table when her second husband arrived home after a hard day of vulcanizing tires. He'd earned a timely meal.

Civil Unions were officially invented for gays in Denmark in 1989, but they have always existed--we used to call them "common law marriages." The definitions of civil unions differ from one jurisdiction to the next, and so does the nomenclature. My favorite term is "civil solidarity pact." Straights are allowed to sign up for these pacts in places like Quebec and Uruguay. Young people do this, I read, where it's easy to end a civil union and complicated to get a divorce.

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that gays have the Constitutional right to marry each other. That's what many want, and it is both a practical matter and a matter of respect. For the 16% of straight Californians who are not religious, though, I suggest considering civil solidarity pacts--get married by a judge at city hall. It costs little, goes fast, then you eat Chinese and go to a Cohn Brothers' movie.