Monday, March 20, 2006

Alternative/"Reciprocal" Arrangements?

Well, Da Godfoddah asks, we must respond, right?

Apparently the State of Colorado is considering legislation which would allow people in a "civil union" to allow hospital visitations, estate-transfer privileges, and employee benefits/insurances to be applied for the benefit of the people in the "civil union."

The question: would the Second Sentence of The Amendment restrict such arrangements?

There's no language in front of me on the matter. And I am not encumbered with a Law degree. Read at your own risk.

Let's start from the top. As mentioned earlier, a Constitution and its supplementing positive law should affirm Natural Law, or at least should not derogate from that law. Thus my opposition to a positive-law-created "marriage" between persons of the same sex--and my support for a Constitutional amendment which makes such "marriage" impossible.

The Second Sentence of the proposed Wisconsin amendment does two things: first, it prevents other States from imposing their fictitious 'same-sex marriages' on Wisconsin under the Full Faith and Credit clause; secondly, it relieves Wisconsin subsidiary governments from being forced to provide "family benefits" insurances to unmarried "partners," whether a "civil union" or otherwise.

However, the Second Sentence does NOT prevent such arrangements from being made under contractual agreement. Thus, if a Wisconsin legislature and Governor were to enact positive law stating that privately-contracted arrangements for health insurance, survivor benefits, property-transfer, visitation rights, durable Power of Attorney (etc., etc.) were permissible OUTSIDE of marriage properly understood, it's no big deal.

Note that this hypothetical legislation does not re-define marriage; thus, tax and adoption issues are "off the table."

2 comments:

  1. Dad29, I wonder which question are you aiming to answer:

    (1) Would the second sentence restrict such arrangements from being made contractually between individuals?

    -or-

    (2) Would the second sentence prohibit the Colorado proposal, in which the state provides couples with a legal status that provides these arrangements?

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  2. No, the second sentence would not prevent such arrangements.

    Don't know/don't care about Colorado, really. Care about Wisconsin. Besides, I don't have the Colorodo text handy.

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