Feel free to write a piece of replacement legislation that we could enact immediately after a repeal of FOMA (if such could be achieved).
Also, realize that the LGBT community already has extensive protection from other resolutions (i.e., those protecting sexual privacy and preventing discrimination).
I believe a more broadly acceptable resolution recognizing domestic partnerships would be better than FOMA and also would respect national sovereignty.
I will not debate this issue any further, at least for the meantime, while I focus on the "Beginning of Life Act" for which a ruling just was made.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
---------------------------
Waiting for the moderators to make a ruling on one of my proposals, the Beginning of Life Act, an act that would ban elective third trimester abortions; recognizing that the predecessor to the World Assembly was able to repeal gay marriage by a vote of 8,776 to 5,767 in HR #173 (8/30/2006); recognizing that HR #182, the Marriage Protection Act (authored by Witchcliff), passed 11,301 to 3,260 (10/20/2006); and noting that today's assembly (and, in fact, most of the real world) is more socially progressive than its predecessor assembly, I want to try to repeal and believe it is quite possible to repeal GAR #15, the Freedom of Marriage Act.
DRAFT
BELIEVING that individual governments should have a right to define marriage as they see fit or to privatize marriage,
BELIEVING that the imposition of an international definition of marriage, applied to all member nations, is extremely difficult due to wide ranging differences and that doing so causes serious problems for those nations with unusual marriage laws and customs,
RECOGNIZING that some World Assembly member states are theocracies, wherein the Church is the State and that, in effect, the State is a religious community, and that some state religions view homosexual acts as immoral,
RECOGNIZING that, in some World Assembly member states, marriage is always a religious rite,
RECOGNIZING that the Freedom of Marriage Act (FOMA) shows little respect for a sovereign nation's societal structure,
RECOGNIZING that there can be a compelling state interest to recognize only heterosexual marriages in order to promote procreation, a continuance of the population, or an expansion of the population,
NOTING that conjugal acts are a common, if not integral, part of a marriage and that, currently, children cannot be begotten of homosexual acts,
BELIEVING that the recognition of homosexual marriages can lead to violence against the LGBT community in certain nations hostile to homosexuality and wanting to prevent such violence,
RECOGNIZING that the bequeathal of property is not integrally connected with marriage and that such bequeathal can occur through legal wills,
COMMENDING the former nation of Mendosia, the author of FOMA, for standing by its ideology and attempting to advance LGBT rights,
AFFIRMING that some nations may choose to recognize civil unions, domestic partnerships, or similar contracts after the enactment of this repeal,
BELIEVING that marriage is not a significant human right, as stated by FOMA,
WELCOMING religious nations or nations otherwise opposed to the recognition of homosexual marriages who are not members of the World Assembly because of FOMA to join the World Assembly because of this repeal,
AFFIRMING that, under a grandfather clause, member states must continue to recognize the marriages of those homosexual couples that are already married, and
ENCOURAGING the General Assembly to enact legislation after this repeal to provide benefits to gay and lesbian couples in committed, lifelong relationships,
The General Assembly hereby repeals Resolution #15, the Freedom of Marriage Act.
. . . you don't want to make one angry.
. We are grateful for Christian Democrats to bring this one up, so we do not have to do it ourselves. Approved. Please continue your admirable work.