US: Utah Republican attempting to change law to call same-sex marriages ‘pairages’

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A Utah Republican is attempting to change the word for same-sex marriage to ‘pairage’ – to keep them distinct from straight couples.

Republican Kraig Powell has tabled a bill which would define any potential unions between same-sex couples as ‘pairages’ instead of marriages, “because they do not have the ability to produce a child”.

He told the Salt Lake Tribune: “For example, Utah code doesn’t have a chapter heading called ‘Marriage’.

“It is actually titled ‘Husband and Wife,’ and all the statutes on marriage refer to ‘husband and wife.’

“So we have a lot of work to revise statutes, and have many details to decide.”

Under his proposal, the words “marriage” and “pairage” would have entirely distinct meanings.

However, his Democratic opponent Jim Dabakis said: “Anyone who is saying we can twist the wording of state law into anything other than full complete equal marriage is going to be in for serious disappointment.”

The Catholic Ruth Institute recently proposed abandoning marriage altogether over same-sex marriage, and creating a new form of ‘straights only’ civil unions designed for procreation.

The group said: “Since an essential public purpose of civil marriage in the United States has been to attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another, and since this essential purpose is being overwritten and therefore discarded due to gender neutral marriage and parenting laws, we propose to establish civil unions that are gender based – one man and one woman.”

 

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