What happens when you cross the state line? Oh, I'm sorry, we don't recognize your 'union'. How is that equal to any 'marriage'?
First: That's not a legal right.
Second: It only works for marriages because states already have reciprocal recognition agreements regarding marriages.
Third: The fix is not to force a new definition of marriage on everyone. The fix is to add civil unions to states' reciprocal recognition agreements.
Married couples can divorce anywhere. Civil unions? Not a chance.
First: It's only an issue because civil unions aren't always recognized across state lines. Amending the state reciprocal recognition agreements will fix that.
Second: Are you seriously complaining that it's too hard to dissolve a civil union? I thought they wanted to marry so they could commit to eachother?
Doing so with 'marriage' will grant that person immediate citizenship. Not so with a civil union.
First: That's not a legal right.
Second: The person can simply go through the normal citizenship process. (I don't think marriage to a citizen should automatically make a person a citizen, so I could make that argument as well.)
Taxes? Forget it. The federal government doesn't recognize civil unions. You can't file jointly.
First: Joint tax filing is not a legal right.
Second: They can usually file state taxes jointly.
Third: Again, the solution is not to redefine marriage, but to add a "civil union" joint filing status to the federal tax code.
There are also over a thousand benefits (yes, that's 1,000+) granted to married couples. Unions in the few states that allow them grant SOME of those, but not all. Not a single state in the union grants all of those protections.
Assuming your number is correct, how many of those benefits are legal rights, as opposed to, say, tax benefits for having children? Can you show me any of those benefits which are actually relevant to a majority of homosexual civil unions? (For example, child tax deductions are completely irrelevant for the vast majority of homosexual couples.)
(Remember: gay-marriage supporters like yourself complain that gays are losing rights. Tax benefits are not a right, they're merely benefits. If that is your chief complaint, fine, I don't have a problem with you complaining about benefits, but don't call them "rights" when they're not.)
Do you seriously thing these civil unions as available today are in any way equivalent to a marriage?
No, of course not; but I've already mentioned the solution: amend state reciprocal recognition agreements to include civil unions. That will solve most of your complaints, and would be far easier for the majority of the country to stomach than redefining something so important to them.
They can visit their partners in the hospital.
One hospital's indiscretion should not reflect on the country as a whole. Or should I regale you with stories about people who are discriminated against in the South just because they're Mormon?
My point is, an anecdote does not give you license to claim there's some rampant mistreatment of $MINORITY going on.
So can partners in civil unions. Not sure where you're getting that. But even if they couldn't the solution would be to change that.
But even if that weren't an option for some contrived reason, it's literally a trivial matter to write a will giving your possessions anyone you want in the event of your death.
So can gay couples. Or are you referring to specific adoption agencies who won't give kids to gay couples, because they think gay couples can't provide an adequate child-rearing environment? If that's the case, you need to address that issue (the child-rearing environment one), not complain about the adoption agencies.
They are actively trying to prevent these folks from having the same rights.
First: Nothing you listed is a legal right.
Second: Everything you listed has a relatively simple fix which does not involve redefining "marriage".
Do you feel it's right to force the majority of the country to accept your new definition for "marriage" when a relatively simple alternative exists?