Civil Unions [Bruce]

Since Stephen and I have been discussing the issue of civil unions and gay marriage, I thought I would pass along this useful analysis by FactCheck.org. It explains that a big barrier for my proposal to separate the issue of "marriage" from civil unions is that gays are heavily invested in the idea of "marriage." In other words, civil unions are not enough.

I think this is unwise as a political strategy. Civil unions are achievable, but I think full marriage rights for gays will probably not happen any time soon. In my opinion, it is silly to allow the semantics of a word stand in the way of getting what is important for gays: the right for their partners to have the material rights of married couples in areas such as health benefits, inheritance rights, and so on. I think this is a case of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good.