>On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> Saying you're for "civil union" but not "marriage" is an admission that
>> you're going for a second-class institution. Press people on why they
>> make the distinction and the hem and haw and can't answer because they
>> can't bring themselves to admit to a prejudice.
>
>I'm not positive that's always true. I think many people think the term
>"marriage" is indissolubly religious -- and that arguing them out of it by
>logic as you seem to suggest is a mug's game -- they hem and haw because
>they know it's illogical but they still feel it.
So it's "religious" - then people are, consciously or unconciously, saying that there's something sacred and natural about a union between a man and a woman but there's something profane and unnatural about one between two men or two women. All these games about making civil unions the functional equivalent of marriage are dodges, because it implies that there's something unspeakably special about marriage, and it has to be reserved for partners of the opposite sex. I think a lot of liberals feel guilty about saying this out loud, which is why they find it so hard to explain why they want to preserve the distinction. As they used to say, separate is inherently unequal.
Doug