The problem with that is that a state could decide on giving gays more rights, or less rights. This is not an acceptable stance.
I don't know if Obama is planning on making federally recognized civil unions or not. I'll admit that right now. His response to the question doesn't make that clear. If, however, he did, that would indicate that across all of the states there would be a bare minimum of rights that would be recognized. Then, each state could decide for themselves about whether it should remain a civil union or be called a gay marriage. Yes, this would make things slightly confusing across states and no, it is not ideal, but that core set of rights, which Obama states should be equal to whatever a straight couple gets, will always be there no matter where they live.
No it isn't. As it stands, civil unions do not provide the same rights as marriages, and the fact that Obama wants them to doesn't make it so. As I said in my previous post, many laws require that the person in question be married in order for that person to receive the benefits. For civil unions to grant all the rights of marriage would require a lot of laws to be changed. More importantly, as you stated, Obama isn't even going to make civil unions national policy. That means that people will have unions in one state that are meaningless in another. This is an obvious sham that isn't going to help gay people a whole lot.
Of course the fact that he wants them to doesn't make it so.
But he does want them to and he is willing to work in that direction. That's the whole point. He recognizes that the way things are right now is not right and he is willing to move in a direction that, while maybe not ideal, is certainly much, much better than what is there right now. I've already quoted the literature stating that he wants to change those laws and extend more than 1,000
federalrights and benefits to gay couples. And since those are federal rights, it leads me to believe that he would be supportive of introducing a federally recognized civil union.
This is the second time you've replied saying that just because Obama wants this doesn't mean it's going to happen because there are laws that need to be changed. And this is the second time I'm telling you, he knows this and
he supports changing those laws!
And? Lots of people can have misconceptions about lots of things. It doesn't mean the executive branch of the United States government has to cater to their ignorance. Marriage existed before judeo-christianity and in the United States it is a legal contract, period. If you want to attach other meanings to it, that's your prerogative, but that doesn't give you the right to interfere with the rights of others.
Oh, come on. Attaching some significance beyond "oh, legal rights, yay!" to marriage does not make someone ignorant. It's a huge step for people, of course they're going to see it as more than entering a binding legal contract. There is
never going to be any movement on this issue if people don't realize that while marriage might have originally been intended as solely a legal contract (I am not familiar with the history of marriage, so I don't know of its origins) the fact of the matter is that it is seen as so much more than that today by millions of people. Call people who attach more meaning to a marriage ignorant if you must, but not everyone has such a black and white view of things. It may seem painstakingly obvious to you that marriage is only a legal contract but that doesn't mean how other people view it is unimportant or meaningless or that anyone is catering to ignorance by recognizing these opposing views and trying to work something out that can make both sides happy.
Except that he is allowing his religious views to get in the way of giving gay people the right to get married, which does prevent them from having the same legal rights and benefits as other Americans, despite what proponents of civil unions say.
If (and yes, it is a big if) Obama becomes President and he successfully changes all those laws and he can offer a gay couple the same rights as a straight couple, he is not denying gay people anything. According to you, marriage is only a contract which gives people legal rights and benefits. According to Obama, he wants to offer gay couples a contract that would give them those same legal rights and benefits. So... he's pretty much offering them marriage, yeah?
I don't know anything about you, but it seems like you've constructed some ideal world where everyone should have the same beliefs you do. Obviously you know this isn't the case, so instead of decrying any kind of progress as "not good enough" why not instead focus on the fact that there is a real chance for some real progress to be made on this issue under Obama's leadership? It may not be ideal, but it's better than anything that has come before. Change is sometimes slow and sometimes we have to embrace that fact and realize it isn't going to happen nearly as quickly as we would like.
Look, I hate when threads get derailed like this. I know you aren't going to change your mind and you probably know I'm not going to change yours. And while it is interesting to see other points of view, this isn't what this thread is about. Can we just agree to disagree about this?