The US finally begins to crawl out of the third world
Your apologia is quite poorly conceived, as you have not considered all the possible outcomes the system created by such legislation. Your assertion that "The existence of "marriages" and "civil unions" does not imply the employment of any force whatsoever, since the distinction is entirely on the part of the government" is demonstrably false. Say for example a member of a legally recognised homosexual civil union were required to profess his or her "Marital status" on a legally binding contract with the options "Married", "unmarried", or "civil union". If He or she checked the Married box rather than the "Civil Union" box he/she could be charged with fraud and liable to civil or criminal pernalties, i.e. fines or jail time. While more abstract-as marriage itself is an abstract concept- It is both in its causes and its effects indistinguishable from the situation a black person being arrested or fined for using a white drinking fountain. In both situations, if a member of the underclass steps out of their legally sanctioned box, they are compelled to suffer penalties.
Your rebuttal is quite poorly conceived, as it tries to synthesize new circumstances that are not essential to the described system. There's no reason the document can't be drafted with only two check-boxes and the options "Single" and "Marriage / Civil Union." This is already the sort of thing that census documents do to consolidate effectively identical options (e.g. differences in terminology for referring to various races). You argue that the government could create problems for itself in this way, but in that case why not other ways? Even if gay marriages are granted, the question could be "Are you in a married relationship that would have been considered valid in the U.S. c.a. 1950?" I'm sure the government could ask all sorts of idiotic, pointless questions and thereby create unnecessary trouble for itself. That's not in doubt.
Again, You've failed to address my point, which was that by being confined to a seperate system, homosexual couples living under a "civil unions" regime are forced to Identify themselves by a legal qualifier that is not required for heterosexual couples, hence they are treated unequally. Your assertion that a census document would be drafted with two boxes, even if true, does not address the potential for other legal documents, both public and private to abide by the same rules. Assuming all legal contracts would do so is not only an article of faith on your part, but frankly is preposterous, One only has to look at the history of legal use of the term Hispanic to see the terminological quicksand this engenders. There are potentially many other situations in which a member of a civil union might be penalized for asserting he or she were "married" One obvious example would be on the witness stand. Furthermore If such a civil union, were as you put it, truly identical, there would be no legitimate reason whatsoever to distinguish it terminologically, It would just be called marriage, plain and simple.
You're moving the goalposts again. The entire line of argument started from me asserting that a nominal distinction between "civil unions" and "marriages" cannot be reasonably construed as "persecution" against gays and it's not similar to a system of forcible segregation of the races. Now those words have disappeared and you would have those same words contend against your much milder "unequal" language. The facts remain that the government could avoid this issue you raise, so it's not a necessary consequence of a system of civil union and that de minimis compelled speech and calling two identical documents respectively a marriage license and a civil union is not persecution or segregation. Calling it such is just an abuse of language and of logic.
I fail to see how illustrating the legal pitfalls of civil unions legislation is "moving the goal posts". It's difficult to imagine how the governemnt could "avoid the issue" without introducing a plethora of new and problematic legislation regulating the language of legal contracts or court proceedings. Your dismissal of compelled speech as "de minimis" only belies your callous failure to recognise what is clearly a form of discrimination- Perhaps I can offer an example to help you empathize - Just Imagine if the situation were reversed and Homosexual marriages were the only relationships recognised by the state, As a Heterosexual You'd be dishonest to call your heterosexual civil union partner "husband" or "wife", or to say the two of you were "married". Now I don't know about you, but I think most people would consider that a form of persecution. Yes, it's a hypothetical, but it's precisely the situation millions of homosexual couples would find themselves in under a civil unions regime. Before Civil Rights laws were passed in the US, citizens of differing races were often not allowed to marry, such marriages were legally prohibited and not recognised by the state or federal governments. If someone suggested a law granting Interracial couples the right to "Civil Unions", rather than Marriage, It would be considered a policy of segregation or racial discrimination. It would be most enlightening to hear how discrimination by race in this regard is somehow radically different that discrimination on the basis of gender.