Thread:Comments:California's same-sex marriage ban ruled unconstitutional; appeal expected/The US finally begins to crawl out of the third world/reply (25)

Again, You've failed to address my point, which was that by being confined to a seperate system, homosexual couples living under a "civil unions" regime are forced to Identify themselves by a legal qualifier that is not required for heterosexual couples, hence they are treated unequally. Your assertion that a census document would be drafted with two boxes, even if true, does not address the potential for other legal documents, both public and private to abide by the same rules. Assuming all legal contracts would do so is not only an article of faith on your part, but frankly is preposterous, One only has to look at the history of legal use of the term Hispanic to see the terminological quicksand this engenders. There are potentially many other situations in which a member of a civil union might be penalized for asserting he or she were "married" One obvious example would be on the witness stand. Furthermore If such a civil union, were as you put it, truly identical, there would be no legitimate reason whatsoever to distinguish it terminologically, It would just be called marriage, plain and simple.