Beyond Civil Unions

Dr. Alterman prints an interesting letter to his blog:

Eric, The argument against allowing the definition of marriage to be expanded to include same sex couples runs along the lines of "it's not natural", "marriage has always been between a man and a woman", etc. These to me are religious grounds and definitions. The legal status, rights, responsibilities and privileges of marriage and family should be a separate thing and available to many different people who want to define their families. I would vote for civil unions for everyone and leave marriage to the churches. That would require religious people to marry in a church and then go to the courthouse to legalize it in a civil union, but that doesn't seem like much different than already happens. The added complexity here is why stop at same sex couples? If we are simply talking about the rights and responsibilities of family, what if two elderly unmarried sisters wanted to form a civil union to define and legalize their bond in the same definition? Not in a perverse sexual way, but just to codify and obtain the legal aspects of marriage. In my opinion, when the state uses an entirely religious definition confer specific benefits upon a certain group of people just because they happen to be lucky enough to meet that category, it discriminates against all others. The discrimination is not just against gays, it is also against many single people of all sorts who live together in various family organizations without these benefits.

I can fully get behind that.