Not enough

If every country in the world used “civil union,” marriage needn’t be an issue for gays and lesbians around the world who seek equal status in the eyes of the law. The problem is that marriage, as a legal and secular terminology, has the weight and promise of equality.
Recently, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that two Pepperdine law professors proposed civil unions as a compromise to all citizens of California while the state Supreme Court debated same-sex marriage.
When Justice Ming Chin asked Dean Kenneth Starr, the lawyer for Proposition 8's sponsors former Clinton impeachment prosecutor if he’d consider the compromise, Starr responded that it was not a bad idea except that Prop. 8 already treats gays and lesbians equally - apart from not letting them marry.
Michael Maroko, the challenging lawyer had a different view.
"If you're in the marriage business, do it equally," Maroko told Chin, including granting everyone or no one the right to marry.
KPCC’s Pat Morrison reported on something similar: Two college students want to put on the ballot an initiative to change the word ”marriage” to ”civil union” in California’s laws.
The students have to collect more than 640,000 signatures to get that measure on the ballot.
The problem with the word "civil unions" is that it is not a universal term, national or international, and therefore continues to be a pseudo Jim Crow stance. Marriage is recognized internationally.
If a same-sex couple hopes to someday file joint taxes federally or a person wants to sponsor their same-sex partner from another country, the word “marriage” is requirement. Moreover, if a couple hopes to be granted equal rights in another country “some day” the word “marriage” also is required.
The word, in and of itself, provides legal rights and responsibilities to couples. If gays and lesbians ever are to achieve global equality this word must stand in the books. What many have not considered, maybe is restricting legal-civil marriages to government and separating religious marriage only for religious purposes as is the case in countries, such as Mexico, where a couple has the option of a civil and religious marriage.
The result may also carry an economic benefit to municipalities that issue licenses and churches that perform ceremonies.