This article seems like a bit of a joke. Most people, when they talk about "getting the government out of marriage" do not also advocate not having any kind of civil union structure whatsoever. People have always had the ability to be spiritually "married" by their church or what-have-you, but they also need to go to the government to have it done legally if they want the government to recognize it and get the associated rights. I don't see this changing much except that the part the government does is no longer called "marriage" and thus gets all the religious nuts raving about how the definition of "marriage" is changing to quiet down and separate the religious from what the government does.
My pipe dream:
1) Single payer health care. This should be a fundamental right, and if it were it would drastically reduce the complexity of civil union law. No one should have to get a civil union to receive decent health care.
2) No more tax benefits or privileges as such afforded to the unioned over the ununioned. Our relationship status should not affect the level of taxes we pay.
3) Civil unions as legal family contracts. It's not about romantic partners any more. It's about chosen family. This can apply to anyone for any reason. If you want someone to be legally considered your family, you should be able to do this for reasons of inheritance and hospital visitation.
3a) As well, the ability to formally remove blood relatives from their abilities to make decisions or visit if an individual wants that. Too many heartbreaking stories already of LGBT couples where one gets sick or injured and their parents take over and forbid their loved ones to visit.
4) Unions are done one-by-one. So in a triad, for instance, each person would have to get a union for each other person separately. You are not legally tied to your metas unless you want to be, by abovementioned legal family contract. I think for this reason joint property should go away.
5) Some kind of system needs to be set in place whereby adults regularly update their living wills and powers of attorney and who is considered legal family for matters of medical decisions, etc. We do this with driver's licenses, and I think it would make sense to connect the requirement together. Obviously you can update sooner than that if you want, but this has adults at least looking at it and having a chance to alter it every few years or so. Things in this would include how to divvy up inheritance and who can make medical decisions in what order of priority.
6) Paternity is established biologically, as that is getting easier and easier to do. No more auto-paternity with a civil union. After the biological parents, other legal guardians can be added with the agreement of both biological parents.
Yeah, it would be kind of complicated, and it would require reworking a lot of things, but I think in the long run a system like this is the easiest way to be as egalitarian as possible.
