My two cents on the recent Prop 8 ruling:
Regardless of how it turns out after all the appeals, homosexual marriages will eventually be allowed, so the most important thing we should do is remember to love and respect each other. However, I must say that I'm not sure what homosexuals are expecting to gain by all this.
To be clear, I'm a firm believer that the divinely inspired union for establishing a family is between a man and a woman, and if my country was governed by an omnicient divinity (as I believe it will be someday), then this would be the natural order of things. However, my government is run by imperfect men and women (the people and their elected representatives) who are making their own determinations of what's right and wrong without a knowledge of all things. Perfection cannot come from imperfection, and therefore our laws can never be perfect.
Now, if we are to live by the law of the land, namely our Constitution (which I feel is the most perfect establishment of government that has ever been created by man), which is founded on the premise that all men (and women) are created equal and entitled to certain basic human rights, then we should not prevent homosexual marriage if that is the only way that homosexuals can have the same constitutionally guaranteed rights as heterosexuals. However, this begs the question of whether or not allowing homosexual marriage is the only way to ensure these rights, to which the answer is obviously no, as marriage is not a constitutionally protected right. Thus, homosexuals already have the same rights as heterosexuals under the law, they are just provided through a differently named union. This doesn't mean that there is still some injustice as we are not perfect, so if we need a law allowing homosexual marriage to establish justice, then we should accept it and move forward in brotherhood and love.
So back to my original question of what homosexuals hope to gain by having the ability to be married, or in other words why is the label of marriage so important to homosexuals?
Maybe it's ease of use? "We have a civil union" is kind of clunky and "we're married" just sort of rolls off the tongue.
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