Elton John: Civil Partnerships, Not Marriage

by Michael Jones · 2008-11-12 09:13:00 UTC
Topics:

gay marriage 2Well, this is sure to stoke some embers.  Elton John has come out and said that LGBT activists working for marriage equality are making a critical mistake. By advocating for marriage, and not civil partnerships, John suggests that gay rights advocates are turning off a large swath of voters.

"I don't want to be married. I'm very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership," said John. "The word marriage, I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships."

There are, however, numerous reasons why civil partnerships fall short of full equality for some.  Greta Christina's blog wrote a piece last year on this issue, stating:

"There are emotional reasons -- marriage is an institution/ritual/relationship that has existed for thousands of years, one that has tremendous resonance in our culture in a way that civil unions simply don't. And there are moral reasons -- as history has born out, separate but equal is pretty much by definition not equal."

And Andrew Sullivan, in a piece he wrote eight years ago (how's that for foresight!), was equally as blunt:

To concede that gay adults are responsible citizens, to concede that there will be no tangible damage to the institution of marriage by their inclusion within it, and then to offer gay men and women a second-class institution called civil union makes no sense. It's a well-meaning surrender to unfounded fear. Liberals of any stripe should see this. The matter is ultimately simple enough. Gay men and women are citizens of this country. After two centuries of invisibility and persecution, they deserve to be recognized as such.

Me?  I tend to side with the Andrew Sullivan crowd on this one.  Sorry, Elton.  I'm reminded of the words of Harvey Milk: "There are people who are satisfied with crumbs because that is all they think they can get when, in reality, if they demand the real thing, they will find that they can indeed get it."

What side are you on?  Do civil partnerships, like Elton John says, go far enough to grant equal rights?  Or is marriage the only just solution?

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Legislators File Friend of Court Brief to Stop Proposition 8
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (5)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.