The importance of marriage for society's general health and stability also explains why the commonly mooted alternative to gay marriage-a so-called civil union-is not enough. Yet, those civil unions would be both wrong in principle and damaging for society. Marriage, as it is commonly viewed in society, is more than just a legal contract. Moreover, to establish something short of real marriage for some adults would tend to undermine the notion for all.
"Marriage is one of 'the basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival . . . To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law" Chief Justice Warren 1967.
There is nothing that the GLBT community can do to appease its opponents except, perhaps, disappear. But in one of the exit polls in the 2004 presidential election that got the least attention, 60 percent of voters favor either gay marriage or civil unions. The younger the voters, the more likely they are to favor marriage. To me, that is reason enough to fight for same sex marriages instead of civil unions.
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