Thursday, April 30, 2009

New poll presents conundrum


A recent poll, the highlights of which have been published by the Associated Press today, confuses the heck out of me. Conducted by the polling institute at Quinnipiac University in Hartford, Conn., the poll found that a majority of respondents were opposed to allowing same-sex marriage, but a majority of the same respondents thought that civil unions were OK.

Huh? I don’t understand the rationale. These respondents are fine with civil unions that would provide essentially all the legal trappings of marriage, even the idea of allowing same-sex couples to adopt children. They just don’t want it called marriage. That’s really what they’re saying. And that, to me, makes so sense.

Why go through all the effort of creating this parallel universe of “marriage-like” status when marriage already exists? And besides, the creation of civil unions could not be solely for same-sex couples; it would be an option that would have to be available to mixed-sex couples as well. The anti-marriage crowd doesn’t get the fact that civil unions are in reality bad for marriage; civil unions weaken marriage – they neither strengthen nor protect marriage.

Separate is not equal. I think it comes down to a fear that should same-sex couples be allowed to marry, then clergy of churches that oppose such unions would be required by law to conduct these marriages. The anti-marriage crowd has been very successful in getting this impression to stick, and the gay lobby has helped this perception to linger.

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