I thank you all for sticking with me through these mini-dissertations on gay rights over the last few weeks. I have just one more topic to cover before I'll release us all and return full time to trashing movies and such in my snarky reviews. That is the topic of civil unions.
There are several states that, while denying marriage to same-sex couples, have made available the option of a civil union. This arrangement is a halfway measure meant to appease those who object on religious grounds to permitting gays and lesbians to "marry," while granting the same rights and privileges as a marriage to such couples. I've been asked by more than one friend what I think about this kind of compromise.
The civil union suggestion comes from a noble place of trying to make two apparently intractable sides of an argument find common ground. Let everybody just have civil unions, you'll sometimes hear people argue, and leave marriages to the churches.
But I think that "separate but equal" by definition can't be equal. The very suggestion that there's something about marriage that should be reserved for any couple tacitly acknowledges that a civil union is not equivalent. Marriage and a spouse are concepts immediately understood by everyone in society. Civil unions are not universally understood, and the term "partner" is both imprecise and cumbersome ("oh, what kind of business are you two in together?") in a way that actually points out just how not-like-marriage it is every time somebody uses the word.
Most people reading this either are or have been married, or imagine one day they will get married. Do you remember when you "popped The Question" to your significant other, or when it was popped to you? Or, if you've never married, can you conjure an image of what you hope that moment will be like?
The Question in your memory or dream is certainly not: "will you civilly unite with me?"
Whether a person takes a religious or secular view on marriage, I think most people would agree the concept of marriage is one associated with love. By contrast, a civil union is a contract: a contract with a partner, and with the state. It's law, not love. And so the insinuation is that a same-sex couple can only have law, not love... or can only have a lesser love branded with a less socially recognized status. Many of the people who suggest the civil union compromise mean well, but the bottom line is that "everything but marriage" is exactly that -- everything but marriage, and therefore not the same thing.
Now, all that said, I recognize that society has had a long way to travel on the issue of gay rights, and is still traveling. For that reason, and that reason only, I think there is a place for civil unions. They're a fine intermediate step, a way of showing people on the fence that society will not in fact crumble if gay people are allowed to commit to each other in "near-marriage." And once they see that, it ought to lower subsequent resistance on the real thing quite a bit.
So the bottom line for me is, sure, let's have civil unions be a tool in the box to help in building equality. It may be particularly useful in states (like Colorado) that have voted to ban same-sex marriage in their constitutions, but that have not prohibited all legal recognition. Still, let's not treat civil unions as the end goal to be achieved.
And that concludes my look at the current state of LGBT rights in the U.S. I hope I've been able to share some information you didn't know before, and I hope even more that I didn't bore you silly doing it. (My intention was exactly the opposite.)
Thanks for reading.
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