But why do gays insist on getting "married" if the law provides for their "civil union"?
For the same reason straights would want to be "married" if the law only provided for civil unions. Because of tradition. You people act like homosexuals grow up in a cultural vacuum and then pop out of some womblike closet full grown wanting to supplant "heterosexual" tradition with some crazy new gig.
Most homosexuals grow up with the same dreams of marriage and family that most heterosexuals do. With all the trappings. Including the name. It is quite a powerful cultural image and very few of us are immune.
To me, it is wrong to argue for "gay marriage" on the principle "absolute equality." If gays want to get married to members of the opposite sex they are absolutely free and equal to do that. Why isn't that enough?
Do you really not know the answer to that question? Do you really think you would be happy in a marriage with someone you do not love? Wouldn't that make you feel empty and alone to be in such a sham marriage?
Why do we need to enact special laws for them.
We don't. The Constitution provides enough authority, dontcha think? The only people enacting special laws are the ones trying to "protect" marriage. All of those states that recently passed anti gay marriage laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman didn't have those "special laws" on the books before, did they? No. They had to "enact special laws" to make sure that heterosexuals got to keep
their special rights, equality be damned.
The upside down thinking on this issue really just boggles my mind.
"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -
The Iron Heel by Jack London
"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea