[Malabra]

Marriage Protection Act
A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.

Category: Human Rights
Strength: Mild
Proposed by: Witchcliff

Description:
RECOGNISING the wide-ranging differences among UN member governments in how they define and recognise marriage and civil unions within their jurisdictions;

NOTING that some member nations are theocracies that will only recognise unions performed in accordance with the doctrines of their religions and that some member nations do not have any provisions of law recognising formal union between persons, and

BELIEVING that any attempt to impose a definition of marriage as a UN standard, to be applied to all member nations, would be extremely difficult due to these wide ranging differences, and that to do so could cause serious problems for those nations with unusual marriage laws and customs;

The United Nations

DECLARES that it is the right of all UN member nations to define and regulate marriage and civil union within their own borders as they see fit.

ASKS each UN member nation to respect and recognise the marital status of international visitors, even if it does not recognise that status with regard to its own population.

STRONGLY URGES all UN member nations who do recognise marriage or civil union within their nations to apply all laws governing them equally and fairly to the whole population, without discrimination or prejudice.

CONDEMNS the practice of forced marriage between non-consenting individuals.

Co Authored by Ausserland.

Voting Ends: Fri Oct 20 2006

[Malabra]

I'm against.

[Klouch]

i voted for, but im not sure.

[Eisophca]

I don't really care, so I'm voting abstain on polls, but will probably vote for the actual resolution.

[Grosseschnauzer]

The schnauzerlands treat marriage as a reigious matter which has no legal status, but our laws treat all domestic partnerships as civil unions, without regard to the gender of the two partners, and which do have full legal status as to all matters and to which religious status is immaterial.

Persons from other nations who claim to be "married" may or may not be considered to have a legally enforceable civil union within the schnauzerlands, even though that "marriage" may be accepted and recognized within a religious community independent of the legal and social status among the schnauzervolk.

Under these circumstances, it is difficult to ascertain exactly what impact this proposal would have, and for now, I am likely to abstain.

edited to add: We've voted against the proposal because there is too much uncertainty for us as to the effect it would have within the schnauzerlands.

(I should note, btw that at least two RL religions have a religious marriage that is not affected by civil laws -- Judaism and Roman Catholicism, and there may be others. The schnauzerlands approach just takes it one step further totally separating religious and civil institutions, and I would point out that is consistent with the IDU's principle recognizing secular government.)

[Gnejs]

AGAINST

[Federation of Disjunction]

I'm confused. Why is everyone on the fence or against?

As with many recent resolutions it's rather tame on accountability and does leave itself open to wide interpretation but it seems to say something good. Let each government set the rules of marriage and respect the status in your country of visitors who are from another country and defined as married in that country.

Also I believe its co-author has a puppet in the IDU.

BTW, We in Disjunction share the GS point of view in that the legality of marriage and the religous joining of two committed souls are separate and conferred by different entities.

BTW Klouch, you didn't register a vote here yet since I'm the only yes vote. This could be interesting if we have a tie. We'll then have to discuss whether we're a direct or representative democracy for our Region's vote.

[Antrium]

AGAINST.

It's another resolution which doesn't do anything. And I hate those

[Keeslandia]

We support, but don't feel strongly about it.

[Stolidia]

Since our sister nation, Ausserland, is co-author of this resolution, I will be happy to try to answer any questions the members of this region might have about it. Of course, since Stolidia is not a UN nation, I will not be voting in the poll.

I am, of course, disappointed at the lack of support in the region for the proposal to date. But honest disagreement is to be both expected and respected. As for the comment that this resolution "does nothing", I must respectfully but strongly disagree. The resolution preserves to each nation the right to deal with that most domestic of all institutions--marriage-- without being subject to the NSUN trying to force-fit a one-size-fits-all definition and set of requirements on 29,000 nations of widely divergent cultures and beliefs. It further encourages true international reciprocity in dealing with international visitors and condemns the abhorrent practice of forced marriage--which we consider one short step up from legalized slavery.

I'll try to make sure to drop by here regularly over the next couple of days in case anyone has a question or wishes to discuss the resolution.

[Klouch]

ok ive decided... abstain. O_O

[Federation of Disjunction]

While our internal UN debates are always important and insightful, from a big picture standpoint our position on this one will be less impactful since it seems the resolution already has wide support.

On an editorial note, I respect everyone's opinion on this and all other matters but I'm a bit concerned as I've recently gotten the impression that we are quite utopian in our views on many resolutions; meaning that we want them to be perfect. I myself admire a utopian goal but also understand realism as well. I'm sure many of you also carry realistic ideals underneath the utopian ones that NS tends to make more possible.

Taking a realistic look at this resolution, despite criticism it does say/stand for something good and I believe the philosophy of our resolutions are fairly important since ultimately, philosophy is exactly what they are. So I realistically support the philosophy of this resolution.

Maybe those reading this say realism be damned since this isn't RL and if so I respect that. I just wanted to put this out there for discussion.

[Antrium]

Federation of DisjunctionOct 18 2006, 03:05 PM While our internal UN debates are always important and insightful, from a big picture standpoint our position on this one will be less impactful since it seems the resolution already has wide support.

On an editorial note, I respect everyone's opinion on this and all other matters but I'm a bit concerned as I've recently gotten the impression that we are quite utopian in our views on many resolutions; meaning that we want them to be perfect. I myself admire a utopian goal but also understand realism as well. I'm sure many of you also carry realistic ideals underneath the utopian ones that NS tends to make more possible.

Taking a realistic look at this resolution, despite criticism it does say/stand for something good and I believe the philosophy of our resolutions are fairly important since ultimately, philosophy is exactly what they are. So I realistically support the philosophy of this resolution.

Maybe those reading this say realism be damned since this isn't RL and if so I respect that. I just wanted to put this out there for discussion. [/quote]
That makes sense. I'm guilty of that, and it's reasonable to pass something that isn't perfect for the game's sake, because it's true that it is rare to see a perfect resolution.

And I think I misread it before, I do now see the "DECLARES" which does seem to give it some purpose. I just hate words like "asks" because they don't really do anything, just encourage it. I personally tend to prefer strong statements over gentle persuasion, and that was my main problem with this.

I might just abstain now.

[Federation of Disjunction]

AntriumOct 18 2006, 11:34 PMI just hate words like "asks" because they don't really do anything, just encourage it.  I personally tend to prefer strong statements over gentle persuasion, and that was my main problem with this.

I might just abstain now.[/quote]
Thanks Antrium. I also see your point of using a word like ASKS since nations who would have views on marriage contrary to the ones trying to be promoted by this resolution would be most likely to ignore a request. Excellent point.

[Malabra]

The region's vote will now be cast AGAINST this resolution.

[Grosseschnauzer]

I've spilt off the "welcome back Domnonia" posts into a separate thread here.