"On Marriage Rite, Gays Refocus"

This article talks about how New Jersey performed their first gay marriages. The article also says that even though there were victories for gay rights, but at the end of the year 2009 the marriage between same-sex couples were seemed to be put aside, and stalled. The article had a very interesting survey that was taken by the Pew Research Center; they found that "53% of Americans oppose allowing gay men and lesbians to marry legally, but 57% favor allowing them to enter into civil unions, arrangements that give them many of the same rights." I think that this is a very interesting survey because most Americans don’t want them to be able to get married, but most are fine with them having a civil union, with the same rights as a marriage. To my understanding this is what same-sex couples have had for awhile, only civil unions not marriage, and that they have only gotten this right more recently. My question is, are gays going to be able to marry one day? and if the civil unions that same-sex couples are allowed to have, and they have all the same rights as marriage then why can they not get marriage license? New Jersey's goal is to pick at the subject bit by bit and eventually have same-sex marriage in the future. In early 2009 the states of Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire have legalized same-sex marriage in May, but then were overturned in November. D.C. passed a same-sex marriage law but it needs to be approved. It seems, according to the article, that most states that vote for same-sex marriage, get it approved by the state but then a few months later it is denied by the congress, or some bigger form of government. In Some cases I think that this is confusing, because you are giving people false hope, and if it is legal for those few months or even weeks in the state and someone gets married is it still legal? and if not why? One woman who has had a civil union with her partner for 15 years works at a hospital and she does not get the same benefits as a married couple would because the hospital doesn't recognize it "People don't know what it means," she says. "But everyone understands what it means to be married." this is the problem with not allowing same-sex couples to be able to get married for exactly what this woman has said, she is given the rights as if it were a marriage but most people don't give her those rights because it is not recognized.

Bello, Marisol. "On Marriage Rite, Gays Refocus." USA Today 07 Jan 2010: A.10. SIRS Researcher. Web. 03 February 2010.