BexyandBen said:
I have always thought that "civil unions" should exist between "any adult human" and "any other adult humans". They should define all aspects of legal relationships between people. And *only* legal relationships.
Actually, they already
do, and have since even before the founding of the Republic. It is called "freedom to contract".
(And if that sounds at all like a punch-line, it is not. :!: ) The right to contract is explicitly protected under the Constitution, (more than once, actually) and the "five fundamental elements of Contract" were once taught in elementary Civics texts. Contract law has always been more than sufficient to deal with all of the issues (from insurance to hospital access to wills) that have been subject to so much contention lately. Free people are, by definition, free to contract for what they need for life, liberty, and the protection of property.
(And I can assure those reading that, in concept and in practice, there is no legal issue with a man having more than one wife without "benefit" of Caesar's license. I could buy a house, buy insurance and specify an arbitrary beneficiary, create a will or trust, , rent a room, or do any other Lawful thing by simple contract -- since it is truly no one else's %$@#!@ business what my sleeping arrangements are...
...so long as I do not attempt to "force" someone to "accept" my lifestyle, or --worse still, and a violation of the Commandent against theft and coveting, of course -- attempt to "force" another to subsidize it. This would be true for "gays" as well, were the real issue not to force approval and provision.)
I submit that the issue is both simple, and very well hidden, because it is the unalienable "Right of Contract" which ultimately was used to defraud folks of all their OTHER Rights. Remember, if you can sell your very soul to the devil, you can certainly trade your birthright for a bowl of food, or trade God-given Rights for "civil liberties" and a "social safety net".
The irony is how the problems which result from the fraud involved with serving "another master" always lead to demands for ever more fraudulent "fixes".
As a result, we are seeing that ancient and once-protected unalienable Right to Contract* being replaced, bit by bit, literally by another contract.
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* For those of a legal bent, the technical issue is generally called "choice of law". Oversimplified, the "nexus" is "commerce", and it is contract under Common Law which has been supplanted, particularly for self-proclaimed "US citizens", by the Uniform Commercial Code, and ultimately by what is called "private law" or even "international law". (You see contracts calling for 'binding arbitration', outside of the court system, etc, for example.)