This is how the Christianist right responds to any notion of civil unions for gays, along the lines that David Blankenhorn endorsed last Sunday:
In a surprising departure from his prior positions, David Blankenhorn, President of the Institute for American Values, partnered with Jonathan Rauch for a stunning op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times called "A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage." In it, the pair advocates the creation of a federal civil union law which would give same-sex couples "most or all" of the benefits associated with marriage while somehow strengthening religious conscience protections. Blankenhorn’s concession is disturbing on several levels.
As we have seen elsewhere, civil unions are a Trojan horse for homosexuals’ ultimate goal of marriage. Once a national civil union law is in place, denial of marital status would be almost impossible to defend. Far from a "compromise," Blankenhorn’s position surrenders on the core question of whether the relationship involved (homosexuality) can be recognized as a social good. If it can be, the ability of other institutions to deny it recognition will be on a path of extinction. Their proposal also confines religion to specifically religious institutions or para-religious institutions. But any religion worth its salt (and light) demands moral behavior in all realms of life, so all sorts of freedoms will necessarily suffer curtailment under this regime. This is of little matter, however, because this proposal is a halfway house to the ultimate goal–something I suspect Rauch knows.
The Dish 