[Bunk]

But Marriage is not just a word, but a state of being with a partner that is deeply important to many people. I've lived with my fiancee for quite a while now, nothing about our living arrangement or our love will really change, so why are we bothering to get married? It's because it is important symbollically to us, the bond of marriage is important in formally tie us together as a family and so forth.

The institution of marriage is clearly something that has endured over a long period of time and across virtually every culture, society and religion. Homosexuality is also something that has existed over a long period of time across virtually every culture, society and religion. No reason to expect that committed homosexual couples wouldn't also want the same things that heterosexual couples also want out of marriage. It's just that we're in this transitional period where homosexuals, a group that has been marginalized for basically all of history because of their difference from the majority are gaining acceptence and equality in progressive places. It's no different than how interracial marriage was once viewed as an abomination by some but then people smartened up and it gained mainstream acceptance in our country and others. Should society have "compromised" on interracial marriage as well at the time? Give interracial couples the right to civil union, but not rock the boat on conventions of marriage at the time as being only acceptable as between two people of the same race?