Except that reality doesn't agree entirely with that model; a large number of opponents to same-sex marriage have expressed acceptance of same-sex civil unions.
However, your point still stands true in the case of custody rights, since same-sex-marriage opponents tend to claim (rather dubiously) that children raised in such a family tend to experience psychological trauma.
I'm really more-or-less neutral on the matter; it doesn't matter what it's called so long as the rights are equal for everyone. "Marriage" is a good-enough term for that.
Many of the statewide same sex marriage bans also prohibited civil unions. Virginia went so far to prohibit contracts that between same sex partners that established defacto civil unions.
> a large number of opponents to same-sex marriage have expressed acceptance of same-sex civil unions
Some folks express that, yeah. I do not believe it is an honest position in the general case and have suspected since the jump that that's a move of the goalposts designed to appear more reasonable than they are, ready to be dragged back further as they are approached.
What I think happened is that gay rights activists realized they would get better standing to fight for equal rights if they called it marriage. That was a successful tactic and I'm not quibbling with it. But I know there are people who would have been pacified as long as it wasn't the word marriage because I have talked to some of those people. If those people also are afraid of gay people in their hearts, that's terrible - but it actually doesn't equate to opposition to civil unions that are only a boring legal matter as opposed to the sexy, apocalyptic "attack on marriage."
However, your point still stands true in the case of custody rights, since same-sex-marriage opponents tend to claim (rather dubiously) that children raised in such a family tend to experience psychological trauma.
I'm really more-or-less neutral on the matter; it doesn't matter what it's called so long as the rights are equal for everyone. "Marriage" is a good-enough term for that.