New Hampshire now joins Vermont, New Jersey, and Connecticut in offering civil unions. Massachusetts allows same sex couples to marry (as did California briefly). Legal cases are pending in California. California, Hawaii and Maine grant spousal rights to same-sex (and opposite sex couples) registered as domestic partners.
This inexorable tide is turning with the growing understanding that it is intolerable to treat people differently in terms of legal recognition of something as personal and private and individual as whom they love.
Some still wring their hands in despair that the end of civilization as we know it will occur should all people receive equal treatment under the law -without regard for their sexual preference.
But many, many more are beginning to recognize that equal treatment under the law means just that. This is a legal argument rather than a moral argument.
To those who would 'moralize' this issue and point out the ways it offends their particular moral sensibilities and those of their Deity, we must point out that they may believe as they wish and worship as they wish, without interference from the government.
As this question of legally recognizing the committed relationships of all couples works its way further through the courts, the issue of civil unions versus marriage will continue to surface.
There may come a day when all 'unions' receive legal sanctioning from various governmental agencies while churches and other non-governmental organizations can sanction or bless or perform their own rituals in addition to the legally recognized unions. And that would be most appropriate and most in keeping with the separation of church and state that is a fundamental tenet of our Constitution.
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