Thread:Comments:California's same-sex marriage ban ruled unconstitutional; appeal expected/The US finally begins to crawl out of the third world/reply (8)

It's also full of woeful exaggerations, like the claim that people are being "persecuted" who are in fact protected by law and subject to no sanctions either criminal or civil for being gay, declaring themselves to be gay, having relationships or arranging whatever ceremonies or personal vows they choose. The Proposition 8 issue doesn't even affect the possibility of civil unions that confer all the privileges and benefits of marriage under another name. Persecution usually consists of something more substantive than mere nominal distinctions.

I'm personally in favour of civil unions for everybody. The provisions of the civil unions would include joint and several responsibility for any children born to or adopted into the relationship so codified. It's not the government's business to impose any particular definition of "marriage" when that can be easily avoided. The government could introduce unions with more than two signatories and whatever other contractual structures may seem propitious and everybody can define marriage in accordance with his own conscience or doctrine. Sounds amicable to me, or at least facilitative of shunting the whole controversy off into the private realm where it belongs. When the government steps in, people are too apt to get "persecuted."