Reply #66: So pessimistic. Here's how simple it would be:

[AP]

today, to get married, you need a civil licence and some form of ceremony (either religious or the fake-religious civil ceremony).

Well, a civil union will be simply getting a civil licence. No ceremony requirement. You sign up, you get the legal benefits and burdens. The gov't doesn't care if you find a chuch to give you a ceremony, and they don't make you waste your time having a fake "civil" ceremony.

That puts the government in the business of conferring solely legal rights and burdens, and it puts the curch in the business of conferring spiritual relationships, or whatever.

"The prestige of marriage." That's a joke. Many people I know are atheists and think of it as a stigma. Of course, they're foregoing the beneift of the law just because they don't like the religion part, which is a little silly. But I hope the gov't does what I'm suggesting so that they would get the legal rights that are, today, conferred by marriage, which would make their lives more productive and it would allow them to accumulate a little more wealth.