3 ms·

>> and would be completely fine with another civil contract with the same rights but a different name. >Because "separate but equal" had such a good run last t

• masklinn 13y ago
  > Do you take the same hardline stance with others who were opposed to gay marriage a few years ago and advocating civil unions? I'm fine with civil unions existing (they're useful, for both same-sex and different-sex couples) and I'm fine with civil unions being a stepstone. But civil unions is not marriage anywhere, least of all legally and across country lines. So the issue is murkier, on the one hand once civil unions are in and civilisation hasn't ended it's easier to drive for marriage equality and the "opponents" to gay marriage can be used to get civil unions (that worked fairly well in most of western europe); on the other hand it means years or decades waiting as a sub-standard citizen (not all of western europe has marriage equality yet), it depletes the store of outrage/combativity for equality proponents it's not necessary[1] and I'm not sure it makes the overall process shorter: there seems to be a ~>10 years lag between partnerships and marriage equality. [0] Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland added same-sex partnerships in the early 90s and superseded them with gender-neutral marriage in the last 5 years; France added civil unions (for both homosexual and heterosexual couples) in 1998 and extended marriage to same-sex couples in 2013; Finland enacted registered partnerships in 2002 and support full same-sex marriage has been falling ever since — from 45% back then to 65% now; Great Britain added civil partnerships in 2004 and further added full same-sex marriage in 2014. [1] the netherlands skipped civil unions and just went straight for marriage equality in 2001