I am not gay, and the likelihood of my ever marrying anyone, male or female is about the same as the likelihood of Cary Grant returning from the grave to pop the question. But my ambivalence towards marriage is mine and not forced on me by legal restrictions.
I am also not Black or Latino or Asian or Arab and the chances of my race changing are even worse than the chance that I'll ever marry the ghost of Cary Grant in a Venetian elopement.
I come to my opinions on equality using what John Rawls called "the veil of ignorance". The idea is that when designing a just society, the only way to do it is to imagine a veil that shields you from knowing what your place in the society you create will be.
So when I say you either believe people are equal or you don't, it is because I have used that veil. If I came into society as a Muslim, I would want to be judged on my own behavior and not automatically presumed to be a violent terrorist. If I came into society as a black man, I would want to be given the same opportunity to work that everyone else gets. If I came into society as a gay man, I would still want to be free to elope with Cary Grant to Venice. I would not want to be handicapped by "civil unions" which are not real marriages and do not provide the same benefits, like healthcare or pensions or social security or tax breaks.
I don't believe in compromise when it comes to equal rights. I know, there's always supposed to be a middle ground- but not when it comes to basic equality. People deserve the right to live, love, fuck, work and believe however they wish as long as their living, loving, fucking, working, and believing doesn't impinge on someone else's right to live, love, fuck, work or believe.
Marriage equity does not impinge on straight marriage. There is nothing about giving gays the right to marry who they want that prevents straights from marrying who they want. Nothing. But straights not allowing gays to marry does impinge on someone else's right to live, love and fuck.
So yeah, I think it is cowardice to back away from equal rights issues because they are not politically popular. It assures us that we will end up with the worst sort of "politicians" instead of the better sort of "statesmen" because only the cowards will get pushed through.
