I think the difficulty here is that, no matter what you believe, the implementation of any sort of pertinant law is a legislative nightmare. On the one hand, as homosexuality has become more accepted in American society (and I emphasize more, since clearly it isn't yet accepted fully), the idea of passing a law defining marriage as opposite-sex runs the risk of creating the kind of firestorm that right now looks about two days away. On top of that, the idea of passing a Constitutional amendment (which I doubt would be necessary in the short run, but see the comments in my recommendation below) is beyond ludicrous and is only going to become more difficult with time.
But, there are two prominent ways of implementing same-sex marriages that have been suggested. The first, which I would support, is just calling a marriage a legal bond of two people, regardless of their genders. The country is not ready for this, even if there are certain areas of the country that might be. The second, civil unions, opens the whole can of worms that tahnan mentions about laws differentiating straight and gay relationships. To me, any law like that has a tint of "separate but equal" and should be approached very, very carefully, even if it is, as I feel to be the case, the only one that would actually be implementable the federal level under current conditions.
My recommendation to either side would be just to leave it alone and make sure that your guy gets elected in '04. Unless a Constitutional amendment is enacted, which would semi-permanently fix the outcome, this is a question that is going to be decided by the Court regardless of what legislation is enacted. Don't bother wasting time, energy, and political capital on pushing the legislation through when the Justices will be making the final decision. Use those resources in making sure the Court has a balance that will make the decision you want to see.
In another vein, I really like Ballad of Mary Magdalene, cnoocy, but I prefer the cover by Dar Williams on the Cry, Cry, Cry album she did with Shindell.
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But, there are two prominent ways of implementing same-sex marriages that have been suggested. The first, which I would support, is just calling a marriage a legal bond of two people, regardless of their genders. The country is not ready for this, even if there are certain areas of the country that might be. The second, civil unions, opens the whole can of worms that tahnan mentions about laws differentiating straight and gay relationships. To me, any law like that has a tint of "separate but equal" and should be approached very, very carefully, even if it is, as I feel to be the case, the only one that would actually be implementable the federal level under current conditions.
My recommendation to either side would be just to leave it alone and make sure that your guy gets elected in '04. Unless a Constitutional amendment is enacted, which would semi-permanently fix the outcome, this is a question that is going to be decided by the Court regardless of what legislation is enacted. Don't bother wasting time, energy, and political capital on pushing the legislation through when the Justices will be making the final decision. Use those resources in making sure the Court has a balance that will make the decision you want to see.
In another vein, I really like Ballad of Mary Magdalene, cnoocy, but I prefer the cover by Dar Williams on the Cry, Cry, Cry album she did with Shindell.