Gay marriage or civil unions? There is no difference

Obviously, there IS a semantic and ideological difference between marriage and civil union. So, for the purposes of a good debate, the topic must be limited, say, that there should be no legal difference, there is no moral difference, or that the government should draw no line between the two. From your last few paragraphs in your opening statement, it is clear that your thesis is against the latter interpretation, that you would like to see a clear LEGAL distinction between civil unions and marriages. This means the burden you have set for the pro side is to show why governments should NOT make any moral, legal or rhetorical distinction between marriage and civil unions. First, I'll deal with a few of your assertions. .. "I personally believe that marriage is a basic right. However, like most things, there are parameters which define those very rights. Since some people are apt to neglect context, it is important to distinguish parameters. For instance, an 8 year old cannot legally marry because the law has determined that people in that age bracket do not generally have the wherewithal to make a decision of that magnitude. So, then, marriage being a basic right does not license us to marry whomever or whatever one wishes. " "However, as we already know, a marriage was defined long ago. If, however, homosexuals want the same protective status for their lovers, I say let them have it. A civil union can be like a marriage in that it legally represents two people who desire to be vowed to one another. All of the same legalities can apply just as they do marriage, but it is done at the behest of protecting the sanctity of marriage, something very important to many people. " The issue here is not whether or not marriage is a basic right. The issue is, 1. ) Who defines "marriage" and 2. ) Who grants us these "basic rights" Marriage was, as you say, first defined long ago. Since the beginning of civilization, marriage has been inexorably tied to religion. Not just personal religious belief, either. These "regulations" you spoke of were developed directly by "establishments of religion". The idea that a person cannot marry someone without their consent or someone underage is a purely religious regulation of marriage, one that has only vanished in most parts of America in the past hundred years or so, and still exists in most parts of the world. I am not endorsing this particular idea of arranged marriage, nor saying it should be legal, but the point is that a legal distinction between "real marriage" and a "civil union" would never be accepted by all cultures since the distinction would be drawn according to religious and cultural values that ARE NOT UNIVERSAL. If you wish to speak of basic rights, speak of freedom of religion, and the restriction of government in regulating "establishments of religion", and imposing the values and regulations of said "establishments" on the people. The government cannot say that Homosexuals cannot be legally married and cannot use the term "marriage" if we still consider it a legal term for anyone. We have to either change the definition of marriage to one free of all religious and moral connotation, or start using the term "civil union" and stop regulation of "marriage" entirely, or else we are unconstitutionally holding one religious establishment's definition of marriage over another. To further illustrate my point, let us compare this to the topic of interracial marriage. If WASP America had put forth the idea, in the years after the civil war, that marriage could only exist between persons of the same race, just as breeding only occurs naturally between animals of the same species, we would have been in a similar position. They would probably have liked to include a new type of marriage along the same lines as "separate but equal"- a special "civil union" of interracial couples, who as the majority of Americans believed, could never be truly "married", but were constitutionally allowed all of the same legal rights. As we all know, the idea of segregation turned out to be not only to extend the stigmas and prejudices against blacks but also to lead to inferior treatment for them, even though they were supposedly guaranteed completely equal treatment under the law. And this is exactly the same thing that will happen to homosexual couples if we set the precedent that they are different, abnormal, and incompatible with the idea of marriage. We cannot have a double standard for American citizens. If we acknowledge a difference between "real" marriages and civil unions we are violating the bill of rights, our social contact, and our own duty to treat one another as equals. We must have a single standard of marriage, separate from all arbitrary distinctions of race, religion or gender.