Czuch:
>  Forget marriage...lets fight for equal rights!
 and


Artful Dodger:

>  You already do have equal rights tho.

First, if marriage is just a label, then it should not matter what the union is called: marriage, civil union, common-law marriage, shacking up together, etc.  The problem is not just using marriage as a word, but rather how the law is structured.

Unfortunately, in most countries there are many laws that relate specifically to marriage (in the US there are 1138 statutes).  In some countries marriages require registration and documentation, while other countries accept "common law" marriages which are defined as people cohabiting in the same residence or owning property together.

In the United States not all states recognize common-law (or similar) marriages.  For that reason not all states give equal rights to unmarried couples living together.

Of course, as we all know, there is opposition to allowing a change in the legal definition of marriage to allow homosexuals to marry.  The opposition comes from a confusion between the legal definition of marriage and how individuals define marriage outside of the legal context.

Since people cannot separate their own concept of marriage from the definition in the law, they insist in keeping the legal definition as a union between a man and a woman.  The perception is that if homosexuals are allowed to marry, then somehow heterosexual marriage is diminished or reduced in meaning.

There was a time when it was impossible for people to marry outside of the church.  If people were not married by some member of the clergy, then their marriages were not legal.  Civil marriages (those outside the church) took a long time to be recognized and became acceptable as the separation of the church and the state became the norm in many countries around the world.  As it is, the law discriminates against homosexuals, and in some states against unmarried couples living together. Those remnants of prejudice and iscrimination will take a long time to overcome because as individuals we impose our own morality on the law, and western Judeo-Christian morality still sees homosexuality as an abnormal, unnatural taboo.  The process of accepting homosexual marriage will be as long as accepting marriage outside the church.