Encouraging Exit Polls On Civil Unions And Gay Marriage

In the midst of all this bad news, I found this out yesterday:

Exit polls on election day indicated that 77% of Vermont voters support either civil unions or gay marriage.

Why is this so encouraging? Yes, the electorate here is liberal, but four years ago, exit polls showed only 49% supported civil unions. The change indicates that once people lived with civil unions and saw that it posed NO threat to them, they rapidly became supportive of it. BTW, civil unions in Vermont are exactly parallel to marriage. There isn't a scrap of difference between the two, insofar as state benefits go. And gay marriage in MA doesn't entitle the participants to federal benefits either.

and in Massachusetts not one proponent of marriage equity lost his or her seat.

The gay marriage banning state constitutional amendement being proposed in Massachusetts establishes...civil unions with rights exactly equivalent to those of marriage, iow everything but that name. What you mention is now the floor rather than the ceiling....

Ok, not to do more than drizzle on your parade.

The deal with having 'marriage' as the name is twofold. One, it makes it possible to sue for federal recognition/equal protection/benefits. Because marriage is a recognized status in federal law, civil unions aren't (as you note). The full bearing is really that homosexuality becomes official part of an adult status and thus is no longer is on social par with (eyes averted) pre-marital heterosexual relationships. IOW, mainstream adult status for homosexuality is attained- not undisputedly so in the first generation, but securely in the next one.

but I think Vermont did it right. The backlash against gay marriage was huge; gay rights suffered an enormous set back in this election. Tactically, I believe the way to go, is to get civil unions instituted in every state and then go for federal rights. A good argument can be made that this is the swiftest route for full equality.

Floor and ceiling: I was referring to expectations of gay rights activists. What was the ceiling (all-but-marriage-in-name cu's) then (2000) is now the floor, i.e. baseline expectation.

Several of the constitutional amendments passed a week ago barred civil unions too. The fundies don't distinguish, or rather: they see the slippery slope you suggest, perhaps even more clearly than you do. They hate and fear the 14th Amendment more than you can possibly imagine.

Civil unions are not a federally recognized status. Marriage is. You can pick your poison: start with gay marriage and fight DoMA, or start with gay civil unions and try to create civil unions as a federal status. For the latter you would have to get Congress to pass a law, get the President to sign it, and then the Supreme Court to agree with it all. Considering that activists will be fighting the same people either way, everybody knows what is at stake, and it will take years to work its way through all the committees and judges anyway- it's probably fewer battles and less time and less verbiage to start with gay marriage.

John Kerry has never flip-flopped is his many years of support for gay rights. Bill and Hillary Clinton are also strong supporters of gay rights. I am sure that all three support equal access to medical insurance for families headed by a same-sex couple, and equal visitation rights, among other rights that gay families clearly deserve. So do I.

All three support the Vermont-style civil unions solution and not gay marriage. So do I.

Speaking for myself only, I have strong reservations about gay marriage, for reasons that are entirely pragmatic and not based on religion or tradition alone.

1. Will gay marriage not strip adoption agencies and social workers of the right to prefer a mom and dad as adoptive parents, other factors being more or less equal? Yes, gay couples have done remarkably well to date at parenting, but remember that the hurdles they have had to overcome in the adoption process have effectively screened out all but the most highly committed and motivated couples.

To claim that same-sex parenting deserves level playing field status is to deny that role-modeling within the family has any benefit. It is also to deny that same-sex couples face unique challenges as parents, which directly contradicts what all these couples themselves report.

Do we really want to open the floodgates to adoption by same-sex couples who are less highly motivated than those to date?

2. If you favor redefining marriage, you should not forget that marriage is, in part, a sexual relationship. Does this not mean that redefining marriage also redefines what constitutes lovemaking within marriage? So now sodomy as well as oral sex is defined and publicly endorsed as lovemaking that is just as valid as coitus?

The typical response is that the state has no business concerning itself with what goes on in the bedroom. Well, unfortunately the matter does not end there. Values and curriculum content in our public schools are directly affected. Of course, safe anal sex must now be taught in all sex education classes, with the behavioral endorsement that this implies.

When the subject of dating comes up in the middle schools, will not all teachers be obliged to recommend and endorse same-sex dating as a fully satisfying option for all to consider? Is this a good thing, especially for boys who face the intimidating hurdle of stepping away from their same-sex peer group and adventuring into a new world of experience with the opposite sex?

3. Whereas the Vermont solution has worked out well for Vermont without triggering defensive over-reaction in other states, the court-forced imposition of gay marriage in Massachusetts has triggered backlash in the form of consitutional amendments all over the country, even in the liberal blue state of Oregon.

Why is the Vermont-style alternative not better for everyone, including the gay families themselves,in Massachusetts and elsewhere?

Whole-hearted acceptance into a community is absolutely crucial to each family headed by a same-sex couple. Will these folks not find acceptance far easier if they have won their just rights under civil unions rather than marriage? And following a democratic referendum vote authorized by a state legislature that recognizes the importance of allowing public participation in the decision process?

If Vermont-style civil unions are instituted in Massachusetts and all across the country, this will constitute a huge step forward for gay couples and especially gay families. It simply should not be seen as a setback.