CWA Spokesman Agrees that "Civil Unions" are the same as "Gay Marriage"
ROBERT H. KNIGHT,  Director
Culture & Family Institute
Concerned Women for America, Washington

When answering a columnist in the Washington Times, Robert Knight of Concerned Women for America , agrees that civil unions and gay marriage are identical except for the name.

Morality, not bigotry

    I agree with Andrew Sullivan on comparing "civil unions" to homosexual "marriage": They are the same thing, with only another name.
    Where we differ, however, is on Mr. Sullivan's insistence that maintaining marriage as the union of a man and a woman is a matter of "stigma" — that is, bigotry. Morality is not bigotry, and defending the integrity of marriage in no way demeans homosexuals or others who choose to live in ways that are unlike marriage.
    Preserving marriage benefits the entire society, including the unmarried, because it is the central stabilizing element. Creating counterfeits by any name, whether it is "palimony" or "civil unions," cheapens and destabilizes this vital institution, putting all citizens at risk because of the social fallout. No-fault divorce, sexual promiscuity and a cultural shift toward selfishness all have hurt marriage. Kicking it down yet another set of stairs will not strengthen it.
    Marriage, as created by God and protected in all major cultures and by all major religions, is the union of the two sexes, not just any two people. Marriage and family predate any political institutions, and they can be counterfeited but not replaced.
    Mr. Sullivan's attempt to hijack the moral capital of the civil rights movement and even use the analogy of segregated drinking fountains is beneath his usually cogent grasp of events. He should stick to foreign policy and other areas in which we all benefit from his fresh and witty observations.
    Rep. Tom Finneran, the Democratic House speaker in Massachusetts , put it well the other day when he was asked whether marriage was a civil rights issue. He replied, "I know the advocates like to cloak themselves [in civil rights]. But the cloak doesn't fit."

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Separate but equal
By Columnist Andrew Sullivan

   The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court 's response to the Massachusetts legislature is not as groundbreaking as people are making it out to be. It's just the logical conclusion of the Goodridge decision, a ruling the legislature decided to try and sidestep. The Justices in the majority home in on the central meaning behind so-called "civil unions" - the only defense of them is that they are a device to maintain exclusion, especially when they are substantively identical to civil marriage. In that sense - same thing, different department - they're a textbook case of " separate but equal ."

   If you're going to give homosexual couples the same rights as straight couples, why are you calling it something different? If both can drink the same water, why a different water fountain? The only answer can be: to keep the stigma in place.

   But stigma surely has no role under a Constitution that affirms equal rights for all citizens. It's not the court's role to rule otherwise. The only judicial activism in this case would have been if the court had decided that, in spite of the state constitution, the public's own discomfort with homosexuals would be justification for keeping homosexuals' second-class status. Legislatures are entitled to legislate stigma. Courts are supposed to interpret the Constitution.

   If the Constitution guarantees equal rights for all, and marriage is one of the most basic civil rights there is, and homosexual couples can and do fulfill every requirement that many straight couples can, what leeway does any court have? I'm constantly amazed by these claims of judicial "tyranny." Was Brown vs. Board of Education tyranny? It's exactly the same principle as operates here: Separate but equal won't do.

   A new dynamic

   But there is a new dynamic at work. First, the White House is smart enough to know that this issue is dangerous for all involved. If the president makes marriage equality an issue in this election, he must know that Sen. John Kerry will not allow him to be more against homosexual marriage than Mr. Kerry is. Mr. Kerry is strongly opposed to allowing homosexuals to enjoy the same civil institution he has used twice himself, and Wednesday he reiterated that.

   So the issue for the voters becomes: Do you support Mr. Bush, who wants to amend the Constitution to strip homosexual couples of marriage rights, civil unions, domestic partnerships and any civil recognition at all; or do you support a man who opposes homosexual marriage but backs civil unions for homosexuals, a state-by-state solution, and no constitutional amendment? Not such a slam dunk for Mr. Bush. In fact: advantage Mr. Kerry. But before anything can happen, we will have real, living marriages in America that are between two people of the same sex. So, the debate will then become how these people's marriages can be undone, revoked, retroactively extinguished. The religious right and the Catholic bishops will be on a mission to expand ... divorce!