Reply #41: Thank you for starting this thread. There is a lot of misunderstanding. [View All]

[yardwork]

I hope that folks reading this thread come away with some new understanding and information:

1. Civil unions aren't the same thing as marriages. Civil unions don't confer the same legal rights as marriages.

2. Even if you got married by a justice of the peace or a judge or the captain of a ship, you are married. Your marriage certificate says marriage on it. Marriage is a legal term.

3. If you are a heterosexual couple, you can get married in a church if you want to, or have a religious leader sanctify your marriage, but that doesn't mean anything legally in the United States. The religious ceremony has no legal meaning unless you have that marriage certificate, which is a purely legal document issued by the state in which you get married. After you get the marriage certificate at your county courthouse, you are free to have a religious ceremony or not. The religious ceremony is purely voluntary and has nothing whatsoever to do with the legality of your marriage in the eyes of the government.

4. If you are a gay or lesbian couple in the United States, you can get "unioned" or "blessed" or even "married" in plenty of religious institutions, but you can't get legally married except in a couple of states. It's the legally married part that gay people are being denied that's the problem. We don't care what your religious institution does or doesn't do.

5. Nobody is going to force your church or religion to sanctify anyone's marriage.

6. Most states that outlaw gay marriage in the U.S. also outlaw civil unions, so stop telling gay people that they can "just go get civilly unioned." In most places we can't, and it's not the same thing anyway.