I suggest reading the decision which rebuts this point, or I can simply point to Brown v Board which enshrined the notion that separate institutions are "inherently unequal."
More importantly though I think you miss the extent to which the "rights" provided by the California Family Code fail to encompass the rights protected by the constitution. The right to adopt is orthogonal to the right be free from discrimination and a state sponsored determination of inferiority.
As for the culture war, I don't doubt that 100 years from now it will still be going on, under a different name, and with as much validity and import as it has today. This is not a mean or petty distinction being discussed here, but one of lasting societal influence and implication.
You have clear disdain for the debate, probably engendered by the disingenuous rhetoric on both sides, however I would urge you to put aside the cynicism for a moment and remember that this really does matter.
I’m sorry but that’s just BS. Brown vs. Board was about keeping people in separate facilities where things could never be completely equal. In that case separate is inherently unequal. Legal rights on the other hand are abstract meaning they can be equal if the law says they are.
> Legal rights on the other hand are abstract meaning they can be equal if the law says they are.
But the law does not say they're equal, as has already been pointed out to you. And yes, pointing to civil unions — which embody a subset of the legal rights granted to legally married couples — as a justification for not granting full marriage rights to homosexual couples is a perfect demonstration of the fallacy of "separate but equal" institutions.
If civil unions really were a perfectly fine substitute for legally recognized marriage, do you think the civil rights movement would have been so up in arms about Proposition 8?
More importantly though I think you miss the extent to which the "rights" provided by the California Family Code fail to encompass the rights protected by the constitution. The right to adopt is orthogonal to the right be free from discrimination and a state sponsored determination of inferiority.
As for the culture war, I don't doubt that 100 years from now it will still be going on, under a different name, and with as much validity and import as it has today. This is not a mean or petty distinction being discussed here, but one of lasting societal influence and implication.
You have clear disdain for the debate, probably engendered by the disingenuous rhetoric on both sides, however I would urge you to put aside the cynicism for a moment and remember that this really does matter.