Unfortunately the crazies don’t even want us to settle on an interim compromise: look what happen in Hawaii and New Mexico when their Civil Un ions / Domestic Partnership bills died in their state legislatures, and all due to pressure from antigay pressure groups!

‘There can be no compromise.’ Of course, compromise is undesirable, it sticks in the throat, its open acceptance of discrimination, but if there can be no compromise what can there be? It seems to me that there are four remaining possibilities.

Obviously, one is to win the gay marriage argument either via political process or through the courts. This plainly is the ultimate goal, however the track record for achieving this in America is not good. Supposing gay marriage is not achieved in the short term, what are the other three remaining possibilities (as I see them)? Public opinion is clearly slowly shifting in favour of gay marriage, a lot because the old are dying off and the young become registered voters (a very slow process), eventually gay marriage will be achieved and in the mean time gay and lesbian couples receive no recognition or protections. The two remaining possibilities involve refusing to accept that there is no gay marriage in America, one, armed revolt, overthrow the government and enforce gay marriage by force or, two, all American gays and lesbians emigrate to one the handful of countries that do recognise gay marriage (practically speaking, Canada).

I hope we can all agree that the last two possibilities exist only in theory and not in reality. I included them to, hopefully, demonstrate my point that if compromise is excluded then all that remains is complete defeat until and unless complete victory can be achieved.

Arguments in favour of gay marriage essentially can be divided into two camps, equality and benefits. Crudely, gays should be treated the same as straights, straights have marriage, so gays should have it too versus gay marriage brings practical benefits to gays and/or society as a whole. If you believe that gay marriage is, purely, about equality then compromise is meaningless, it might, at best, be a useful political stepping-stone but it would have no merit in its own right. If, on the other hand, you believe that gay marriage is not just about equality, that it brings practical benefits, then compromise i.e. some but not all of those benefits would be better than nothing and therefore a good thing, so long as it doesn’t unduly delay full gay marriage.

This brings me to the question of whether compromise delays gay marriage? It’s very difficult to answer objectively since it involves either predictions about the future, or counter factual questions where gay marriage has been achieved with or without a preceding compromise. Obviously, there may be times where gay marriage is achievable and compromise effectively partially snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. There is also reason to believe that there may be times where compromise actually hastens gay marriage. There is a natural conservatism amongst voters a tendency to stick with the devil they know than to leap into the unknown, in the presence of moral doom-mongers predicting the end of the world in the event of gay marriage voters may not quite be willing to trust that they are wrong but are prepared to give some benefits and recognition to gay and lesbian couples which they feel confident will not lead to moral disaster. When gay and lesbian couples eagerly take up these benefits, prove themselves to be much like heterosexual couples and society doesn’t show signs of moral collapse enough these voters may feel confident enough to allow gay marriage.

Even if you believe that gay marriage is, purely, about equality then I hope I have shown that there may be circumstances where compromise is beneficial to the eventual goal of gay marriage. Whether a particular compromise, at a particular time is or is not a good thing will inevitably be a difficult and hard-nosed decision but I don’t think any compromise in any future circumstances should be written off on principle.

Of course there are anti-gay folks out there for whom no compromise is acceptable and will fight tooth and nail prevent any compromise or failing that water it down, but they will continue oppose us if we restrict ourselves to full gay marriage or even achieve it. However there are also folks out there for whom full gay marriage is unacceptable, but may be prepared to compromise.

[Webmaster's Note: Thanks for this thoughtful response. My point, though, was not that compromise is an unacceptable strategy on our way to winning full equality. My point, rather, was that the civil-union/domestic-partnership compromise is unacceptable as an ultimate goal. Many people (most of them straight, but not all) argue that everything-but-the-word civil unions are a solid permanent solution. I'm using Peter Sprigg's comments to show that the other side can never be appeased; they will continue to whittle away our rights until we have nothing. In a nutshell: do I support a measure like Washington state's R-71? Certainly, for the moment. But most certainly not, as an attempt at a permanent solution.]

And trust me, we will make that.

I believe, as many do, that homosexual relationships are not only morally wrong (whether or not it affects other people is irrelevant), but of a metaphysically different nature than heterosexual relationships. (I have both same-sex and opposite-sex attractions, and I can tell you that they are experientially very different.) Therefore, to treat gay couples exactly the same as straight couples

However, unlike Mr. Sprigg, I do not think it is the place of the government to force moral behavior on its citizens in all areas of their life; that is, I oppose anti-sodomy laws as much as any of you, and there is no reason why most of the legal benefits of marriage should not go to gay couples if they want them.

I do support civil unions, because this is a secular society. I also oppose DADT.