[eropple]

It is a reasonable position, but a realistic one only if you believe that the opposition to same-sex marriage is the use of the word "marriage" and not a fear-driven hatred of people with a different use for their plumbing. As it happens, I do not; I am entirely certain that "civil unions" being applied to gay people would call down the exact same rhetoric from the exact same people. (I am further certain that the whole "defense of marriage" is only a proxy for not being able to beat the shit out of gay people for funsies anymore. Progress, I suppose.)

[yellowapple]

Except that reality doesn't agree entirely with that model; a large number of opponents to same-sex marriage have expressed acceptance of same-sex civil unions.

However, your point still stands true in the case of custody rights, since same-sex-marriage opponents tend to claim (rather dubiously) that children raised in such a family tend to experience psychological trauma.

I'm really more-or-less neutral on the matter; it doesn't matter what it's called so long as the rights are equal for everyone. "Marriage" is a good-enough term for that.

[woofyman]

Many of the statewide same sex marriage bans also prohibited civil unions. Virginia went so far to prohibit contracts that between same sex partners that established defacto civil unions.

[eropple]

> a large number of opponents to same-sex marriage have expressed acceptance of same-sex civil unions

Some folks express that, yeah. I do not believe it is an honest position in the general case and have suspected since the jump that that's a move of the goalposts designed to appear more reasonable than they are, ready to be dragged back further as they are approached.

[pekk]

What I think happened is that gay rights activists realized they would get better standing to fight for equal rights if they called it marriage. That was a successful tactic and I'm not quibbling with it. But I know there are people who would have been pacified as long as it wasn't the word marriage because I have talked to some of those people. If those people also are afraid of gay people in their hearts, that's terrible - but it actually doesn't equate to opposition to civil unions that are only a boring legal matter as opposed to the sexy, apocalyptic "attack on marriage."

[tommorris]

Civil unions would have been a nice compromise 20 years ago.

[pekk]

I can't agree. The word "marriage" in particular makes people irrationally excited and start thinking about their church's definition of marriage. So politically, it is a line in the sand. "Defense of civil unions act" doesn't have the same ring and wouldn't get Republicans out to the polls the same way. If, in an alternate history, this could have been made a matter of the government meddling in the issue of marriage as big brother, then we would have seen more input from at least the libertarian side of the right wing if not also the mainstream. As it is, I'm glad about the outcome but now we have another irreconcilable front in the culture war alongside abortion.

[kbenson]

How would removing rights granted by marriage and putting them under a civil union, which is what I took the parent to propose, supposed to not trigger irrational excitement of people who support marriage in it's current incarnation? You can argue that people shouldn't care if they just have to get a civil union in addition to their marriage, but we've already brought irrationality with regards to how marriage is defined into the argument as a behavior that we agree exists, so we can't ignore it now.

[wcummings]

>"Defense of civil unions act" doesn't have the same ring and wouldn't get Republicans out to the polls the same way.

Because its not coded language designed to appeal to homophobes, unlike actual Republican rhetoric. If it wasn't an "attack on marriage" it would be something else.

[DonHopkins]

It's the word "gay" that makes them irrational.