It's not the word, it's the idea

Same-sex marriage foes in the U.S. often say that they’re trying to protect “marriage,” because if “marriage” isn’t a union between one man and one woman, it could mean anything! Those that think the gays are raising a stink over a little thing — the word “marriage” — sometimes say “it doesn’t matter all that much, really. It’s just a word. You can have the same rights without calling it marriage.”

In California, we basically have those same rights under the domestic partner law. It states that registered couples within California have the right to every state spousal law except joint tax returns. And today, the state Supreme Court validated the law by declining to to review court rulings that have said it doesn’t conflict with California’s Prop. 22, passed in 2000, even though the people who put Prop. 22 on the ballot in the first place are the ones challenging this law. Because that law states that, quite clearly, “marriage” is a union blah blah blah.

Marriage. That’s what “marriage” is.

So you may think that those opposed to same-sex marriage would sit back and relax because they got what they asked for 5 years ago. And of course, you’d be dead wrong.

After the high court’s ruling, lawyers for the Alliance Defence Fund said they’re going to put another proposition on the ballot, because although they said “marriage” in 2000, they meant, “anything and everything having to do with gay couples getting together and trying to share their lives, which is completely wrong and everyone agrees with us and we’re going to prove it by stripping away this law, too, and any other attempts that come along in the future. Because, well, Jesus said so!”

Or words to that effect.