…not because they’re guys, but because that’s Batman’s ward for crap’s sake. That’s knocking on incest’s door.

Batman’s Lolita?

Oh no! Shield your children’s eyes! If they see that, they may become horribly confused and disturbed and never recover!

On the other hand, it’s gratifying as always to see ordinary human beings in the trenches, so to speak, simply going about the business of life and getting what they need for themselves done one way or another – although the “married-no, civil-unioned” business is tiresome to say the least!

That’s incredible! Well done!

It’s been a fun and sometimes scary game for my husband and I to play in the last few years, when we drive from home in Baltimore to visit folks in New England: New Jersey, we’re Civil-Unioned here, New York, we’re married here, Connecticut, we’re Civil-Unioned here, Massachusetts, we’re married here we think, Vermont, we’re Civil-Unioned here, Canada, we’re married here!

Please accept my apologies for all homophobes everywhere.

But I have been surprised about how far things have progressed and that it has become far more mainstream and now admit my error. However, I still don’t see the need for the “M” word.

In some countries, like France, all marriages have to be done by a government representative, usually the mayor. Purely religious marriages are not recognized. France has a civil union law called the PAC which insures the rights of partners who are not in the traditional scope of marriage. So they benefit the same as married couples. It even gives protection to foreigners who might be having immigration problems.

One of the interesting things is that the French law is not only for same sex couples. Members of a family who run a business, for example, can create a PAC’s for tax and inheritance reasons. So if one dies, the other doesn’t lose the business or even a shared home.

I think marriage itself should simply be replaced by something like that.