First of all my apologies to Eye On Wisconsin. I wanted to post this on
his
"Wisconsin Supports Civil Unions" thread but it was fast falling down the diary list and I felt this was important enough to bump. His diary clearly makes the case that "protection of marriage" and "civil unions" are seperate issues in the minds of most Americans. My wife has been telling me for years that the simple solution is to give marriage to those who invented it as a sacrement in the first place: let "Marriage" as a legal term belong to unions of a man and a woman. Let "Civil Unions" be binding legal relationships between a gay couple. If Dems would propose a "Definition Of Marriage Act" that clearly spelled out that fundies get what they want and lefties get what they want it could be a great win-win for the party while codifying "marital" rights for all Am ericans. Democrats can and should protect "Marriage" while doing the right thing for all Americans.
Here is the meat of
Eye On Wisconsin's piece:
A newly released Badger Poll suggests that a good majority of Wisconsinites support Civil Unions, nearly 60%. This seems consistent with other polls taken on Civil Unions. The poll revealed that the only age group that did not have a majority supporting Civil Unions was 60 and older. Also, Independents actually had a higher percentage (71.2%) supporting Civil Unions than even the Democrats (67.5%). Even 42.2% of Republicans supported Civil Unions...
...This poll also states that just over half of the respondents favored the Amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions. If the 4 point margin of error is factored in, this verifies the data from a recent poll released by WisPolitics. The state appears to be split down the middle on the Amendment...
Clearly, Eye has detected that most Americans feel the same way as my wife: homosexuals should have all the rights and benefits as everyone else but the term "Marriage" has a special meaning that should be honored even if it's inherent benefits and responsibilities are duplicated by a "Civil Union".
Obviously fundies like Sam Brownback aren't going to support anything that recognizes gay rights but....most republicans are not Sam Brownback and most Americans are not Republicans. This is a defining "wedge issue" because it would force Republicans to either vote for an issue in terms most Americans would appreciate or show their blind allegiance to the American Taliban by voting for bigotry and ignorance in a very clear form.
On the other hand many far-lefties will argue that the term "marriage" is universal and denying it's mere usage in legal vernacular (obviously a gay couple could still say, "we're married ten years next week" in conversation without a fine...) is an infringement of civil rights. That is almost as intransigent a position as a total gay union ban. Grain of salt people.
The key point here is that this issue can be spun in the right (or left) direction this year. The distortion of semantics has been the most potent weapon on the Rove/Ailes regime but there is no law against using this tactic against them. Democrats can and should protect "Marriage" while doing the right thing for all Americans. The right wants to use "Gay Marriage" as a reason for fundies to bus folks to the polls. Lets take a stand on the floor of Congress to give people a reason to say "Fuck you!" to there local gas-bag republican representative who always says he's moderate but always pulls out the rubber stamp for Bushco and the Moral Minority.