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I'm not a voter in the US, and I'm definitely not a Richardson fan overall.
But what about his (I thought) honest answer? -- he supports doing what can actually be done.
As background, I'd point out that "civil unions" were in fact what was done in Canada, for instance, before marriage became possible. Not formally in all jurisdictions, but in Quebec it was. It is also what has been done in other places.
The situation in Canada, provincially (e.g. spousal support) and federally (e.g. government pensions), was that the distinction between marriage and "common-law" relationships had been wiped out long before same-sex marriage came to pass. Unmarried opposite-sex couples had virtually all the same rights and protections as the married (slight differences relating to property). And same-sex couples had had those same rights and protections, not for as long as opposite-sex couples, but for quite some time. They got survivors' pension benefits, had support and parental rights, were entitled to include spouses in employment benefits like supplemental health insurance and time off for family reasons. There was no need for "civil unions" any more than there was for opposite-sex couples; the de facto relationship sufficed for both.
I gather that common-law opposite-sex couples have nowhere near the same rights and protections in the US, so extending that treatment obviously wouldn't do.
The thing is that in Canada, it took constitutional challenges, in the courts, to the various provincial governments' refusal to issue marriage licences, to make the issue unavoidable, and achieve the victory in principle that was then solidified by legislative action. (The definition of marriage is federal, and it actually said nothing about the sex of the parties; the solemnization of marriage, e.g. licensing of officiants and issuing of licences, is provincial.)
The same was true in South Africa. It wasn't governments that did the doing, at least not until they were told they had to by the courts.
Your courts are probably a lost cause, so this puts you in a difficult position.
First, the issue is really a state-level one, as I understand it (apart from federal attemtps to interfere, like the defence of marriage thing.) Which makes it complicated and messy.
But more problematic, it seems to me, is that you're trying to do politically what has been really difficult to do even in more socially liberal places: get a legislative rather than a judicial rejection of unconstitutional limits on marriage. (Unconstitutional, obviously, because they deny the equal protection of the law.)
On the one hand, it seems bizarre to think that it would be easier to change the 1100 or whatever it is provisions that deny that equal protection in the US. But logistically, that could be done by omnibus legislation changing the definitions in all of them at once. (I don't quite understand the federal component of all this.)
Anyhow, like I said, just background. But I think it's worth considering when looking at what's doable. You really are trying to do something all at once that was done gradually and piecemeal in most of the places where it has already been done.
The process in other countries that now have same-sex marriage was a bit of a long one, and it may be that by skipping over parts of that process you're asking for something that isn't doable, politically at least.
That's not to say that I would actually respect a candidate who muttered about churches and a man and a woman and personal misgivings and separate but equal and yuck like that. I just wonder whether Richardson's answer wasn't a good reflection of reality, and an honest response to it.
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