This is a good opportunity to remind people that the reason your “compromise” is commonly greeted with such contempt on the gay side is that we find it difficult to credit that you could be unaware that most people view this as a contradiction in terms, or that if you’re as devoutly religious as you claim that you could fail to view it as a contradiction in terms yourself.

After all, the majority of people of Colorado certainly think of them as opposed. That’s why, as the opponents of the current measure were within their rights to emphasize, the last time Coloradoans were directly asked, in 2006, they not only confirmed marriage as opposite-sex-only, they also declined to offer domestic partnership benefits. In turn that’s because defending the traditional meaning of marriage vis a vis same-sex couples _is_ denying them benefits or other recognition. It’s intrinsic to the tradition that not only don’t same-sex couples get recognition within marriage, they don’t get recognition any other way either. The Catholic position is representative:

‘There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts “close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved” [...] Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil. [//] In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application.’ ( http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html )

So even if I were inclined to have more respect for tradition or for religious objections than I do, there’d be little point trying to appease the traditionalists or the religious conservatives by trading away the word marriage because it’s precisely my relationship getting any recognition at all that is the core of both the tradition and the religious objections. It’s not the happy compromise that you make out - I wouldn’t not be undermining marriage in the view of my opponents, I’d just be undermining it less and only to the extent that civil unions or domestic partnerships or SLC benefits are understood by all to be a calculated insult, as little and pathetic as the religious conservatives can get away with if they can’t prevent any recognition at all.

So at the risk of seeming churlish, I’m afraid I have not the slightest intention of meeting that sort of attitude halfway. You can take your “If you cop to evil in the second degree we’ll give you hospital visitation rights”. and shove it. Not only is it insulting, it’s also a bad deal because I fancy we have social conservatives on the run in any case. Overt homophobia doesn’t poll well anymore, and social conservatives know it. Verbal gay-bashing works to raise money from the base, but it’s increasingly poison to the moderates that need to be kept on side. I’m sure if I feigned respect for euphemisms like “defending marriage” and went along with the idea that there was some daylight between that and sticking it to gay people I could win over a few mushy moderates who want to see motherhood and apple pie on both sides, but I fancy I can do better by working to illustrate that most conservatives are pissed off for rather more ugly reasons than what they let on in TV commercials.