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On Sunday, October 11th of this year, more than 200,000 people marched on Washington, D.C. It was a diverse crowd -- young and old; mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters; husbands, wives, and lovers; average working Americans, war veterans, and national celebrities -- all gathered for one, singular purpose: to demand equal rights for gays and lesbians.
Gay rights is a hot button topic in America today, and unlike with many other political issues, it seems that nearly everyone has an opinion on the matter. There are those who believe that extending marriage benefits to gay couples would be a defilement of the sacred institution of marriage, and there are others who believe that all monogamous American couples deserve equal access to those benefits, regardless of sexual orientation. A popular trend among liberal politicians today -- including our current president -- is to forge a compromise between the two bitterly divided groups. They propose limiting the definition of marriage to heterosexual couples while extending the same legal benefits to gay couples in the form of "civil unions." It is the opinion of this author that, while well-intentioned, civil unions are not a sufficient solution to the problem.
On the surface, it would appear that the movement for civil unions represents a fair compromise: it refrains from offending the moral sensibilities of the majority by "protecting" the institution of marriage, while appeasing the will of the minority by offering a similar set of rights and benefits to gay couples. In some ways, civil unions accomplish this goal. The civil union laws in states like Vermont and Connecticut, like marriage, offer "next-of-kin" status to domestic partners for the purpose of hospital visitation rights, and the right to make medical decisions on behalf of a loved one who has been rendered incompetent to make such decisions. Also as with marriage, they allow for the couples to share joint insurance plans, so that, for example, both partners can be covered under a single health insurance plan offered by an employer.
However, civil unions fall short of providing the same benefits as marriage in a number of ways. Because civil union laws are state-specific and are not federally recognized, same-sex couples cannot file joint tax returns and receive none of the federal tax benefits that heterosexual married couples enjoy. Additionally, Civil unions are only recognized in the state in which the union was performed; once one or both partners crosses state lines, all the benefits of their civil union cease to apply.
The biggest problem with the civil union movement, however, is not a matter of practicality, but of ideology. Even if all of the above issues were resolved, and a federal civil union law was established that made civil unions functionally identical to marriage, it would still be little more than thinly veiled discrimination codified into law. The theory behind civil unions is that gay couples, as American citizens, deserve to enjoy the same benefits as heterosexual couples, as long as they don't call it "marriage." You can have that, which looks and feels a lot like marriage and is basically the same thing, but you can't have this, because this is for straight people.
Does that sound familiar? In the '50s and throughout most of the '60s, this attitude was very popular in America, and especially in the south. Long after slavery had been abolished, it was thought that it was sufficient to provide access to public education to a certain minority group, as long as they went to different schools. It was okay to allow this group access to public transit, as long as they sat in the back. You can have that, because as American citizens you deserve the same rights as everyone else, but you can't have this, because this is for white people.
In Brown v. the Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court found that "separate but equal" was not "equal" at all, and thus began the long and arduous process of ending racial segregation in America. Today, the black civil rights movements has made enormous strides toward racial equality, and in November of 2008, the United States came full circle from slavery and racial segregation by electing a black man to the highest public office in the land. But change the minority group from blacks to gays, and it appears that the American public still has not fully learned its lesson. Separate is not equal, and equality for all American citizens will never be fully realized until gay and lesbian couples are allowed equal access to the institution of marriage and all of the legal benefits associated with it.
