I had always considered the fight to be about the word, rather that the legal bonding. “Marriage” is a religious term, one identified by the church (whichever church that might be) as a union between a man and a woman, a term which became a legal tool over the centuries to setup household, a legally binding merger, much as ER described.

Then, one day, “civil union” was brought into play, and this innocuous, straight forward, already an accepted legal term, received further harassment. Why? “Civil union” sought to bypass all the religious issues by going strictly public, as couples (men and women) have done for centuries, in stories generally to get around a parent’s self-righteous objections to a formal marriage, which magistrates had no problem granting, for what is a community if there is no adventure in its history?

Through the recent decades, the now subdued arguments between “marriage” and “civil union” pressed on, in the courts, and occasionally in the media. We are now at the vital crossroads that all legal rulings must one day face; “The Final Judgment.”

The argument I started out with here, between the terms “marriage” and “civil union,” which I was sure long ago would solve all the problems faced by the same-sex communities, stepped boldly into our judicial system and promptly faded into all that beautiful mahogany woodwork. The church (whichever church that might still be), is now being attacked for its long-standing Biblical interpretation of the term “marriage” -- that whole “union between a man and a woman”-thing, yadda-yadda, and so forth. There remain a few more rutty roads to cross in this one, b, but I believe we are nearing the end of the legal battles. It will soon return to the public streets, hopefully without the past violence. I think the public is about as ready to accept it all as it can be -- at least from a Middle American POV.

Cheers.