http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyath...in-church/
The basic gist of it is an attempt to replace 100% of the mentions in Missouri state law of "marriage" with "contract of domestic union". Including converting all marriages done in the state into "contract of domestic union", with the added idea that churches can choose if they report they've performed a marriage to the government.
The bill is a Death Star sized document. I can see several problems with it.
First: The idea that only a church can do a marriage. This is in part because marriage is a legal identity, with a lot of benefits attached to it through a large body of law, both common and explicit, while domestic/civil union doesn't have such.
Second: This is a deliberate and radical misalignment of state law from federal law. This potentially yanks out the rug from under anyone who's married in Missouri in terms of things like taxes and other Federal institutions. Doubly so with the attempt to make it 100% retroactive, which would at minimum annoy a lot of bureaucrats and lawmakers.
Third: I haven't even tried to find how they handle out of state marriages. Do they merely recognize them as "contract of domestic unions"? Or are they going to decide to no longer recognize such because the language no longer aligns?
I'm fairly certain the "marriage is only a church thing" is kind of a gimme for challenges, and is really intended to be struck down, with the hope that they can retain the "it's domestic unions now" and basically do the whole, "blame the gays, they're the reason we had to burn the whole legal framework to the ground."
I'm not saying this just as a problem because I'm in a same sex marriage right now... I'm also considering that my parents will be affected by this (45+ years, married in Missouri).
It's audacious, but I'm not surprised that someone's finally attempting to "take the marriage ball and go home", with little to no regard to HOW MUCH DAMAGE it will do to just about everyone in the state. And given that I'm not sure what the interactions are like legally, I'm thinking Missouri just added about ten years to my desire to avoid the place.
The basic gist of it is an attempt to replace 100% of the mentions in Missouri state law of "marriage" with "contract of domestic union". Including converting all marriages done in the state into "contract of domestic union", with the added idea that churches can choose if they report they've performed a marriage to the government.
The bill is a Death Star sized document. I can see several problems with it.
First: The idea that only a church can do a marriage. This is in part because marriage is a legal identity, with a lot of benefits attached to it through a large body of law, both common and explicit, while domestic/civil union doesn't have such.
Second: This is a deliberate and radical misalignment of state law from federal law. This potentially yanks out the rug from under anyone who's married in Missouri in terms of things like taxes and other Federal institutions. Doubly so with the attempt to make it 100% retroactive, which would at minimum annoy a lot of bureaucrats and lawmakers.
Third: I haven't even tried to find how they handle out of state marriages. Do they merely recognize them as "contract of domestic unions"? Or are they going to decide to no longer recognize such because the language no longer aligns?
I'm fairly certain the "marriage is only a church thing" is kind of a gimme for challenges, and is really intended to be struck down, with the hope that they can retain the "it's domestic unions now" and basically do the whole, "blame the gays, they're the reason we had to burn the whole legal framework to the ground."
I'm not saying this just as a problem because I'm in a same sex marriage right now... I'm also considering that my parents will be affected by this (45+ years, married in Missouri).
It's audacious, but I'm not surprised that someone's finally attempting to "take the marriage ball and go home", with little to no regard to HOW MUCH DAMAGE it will do to just about everyone in the state. And given that I'm not sure what the interactions are like legally, I'm thinking Missouri just added about ten years to my desire to avoid the place.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor