When Are Two Things the Same?

As a response today to the Colorado Senate's Judiciary Committee voting 6-3 today to pass civil unions, I read this (here):

"It is as close to marriage as can be construed in Colorado law without using that word," said Republican Sen. Kevin Lundberg, a long-time opponent of LGBT rights. "For that reason it is marriage and it changes the institution of marriage."

Among other things I am reminded, with a bittersweet, ironic smile, that whenever social conservatives are faced with marriage equality as an issue they always exclaim "Please! Can't we make it civil unions? Please, please, anything so long as you don't call it 'marriage'!" Of course, plenty of actual experience with reality has demonstrated that they really don't mean it — see Mr. Lundberg's remark above, e.g. — but only use it as a dramatic rhetorical negative to try to delay the conversation, a frequent conservative tactic that appears in many guises.

But what really caught my notice was the more metaphysical question that Mr. Lundberg raises, namely, when are two things that are not the same the same? Many marriage-equality foes have repeatedly suggest that "civil unions" are plenty, are a separate-but-equal equivalent of "marriage" that will mollify the gays but keep the straights from having their own marriages rendered asunder. On the other hand, we know also from experience and from court cases that "civil unions" are not, in face, treated as virtually identical to "marriage" but are, in fact, treated as — no surprise, this — the second-class imitations that they are when it comes to conferring the civil benefits of marriage.

So, this is how the conservative argument goes: "civil unions" are identical to "marriage" but don't use the word, except that "civil unions" are lesser than "marriage" and safe to use for gays, except that "civil unions" are too much like "marriage" and had better not be used….

Honestly, what Mr. Lundberg really put me in mind of is the timeless, and rather pointless, question of whether this mathematical statement is true:

1 = 0.999999999… .

Posted on March 7, 2011 at 23.31 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Faaabulosity, Snake Oil--Cheap!

One Response

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  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Thursday, 10 March 2011 at 02.45
    Permalink

    There you go, trying to pin a conservative Republican to facts and logic. At least according to them, they're exempt from such inconveniences.

    Besides, it's like trying to stop the incoming tide with your bare hands.

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