A Special Report titled "Homosexual
Civil Unions," on the website of Lou Sheldon's archly anti-gay
Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), takes aim at the Independent
Gay Forum (it's a slow-loading PDF so give it a minute or two -
nothing about the TVC is up to date, it seems). According to the
report:
Dale Carpenter, a homosexual writer for the Independent Gay Forum (11/25/2004), for example, has described the "California Model" to gain the legal status of marriage - without calling it marriage under state laws. The objective is to gain marriage status through incrementalism....
Carpenter says this incremental strategy makes it difficult for opponents to oppose "any single one of the benefits and responsibilities that comprise the legal status of marriage."Incrementalism "also gives the public time to adjust to each advance." (bold emphasis in original)
The report also targets John Corvino for advocating civil unions, as well as Andrew Sullivan and others (for trying to undermine marriage), citing work that's appeared in various venues, but I take pride in the fact that a graphic from our site accompanies the report's lead item. (Links to Dale and John's articles can be found by scrolling down on your right.)
The TVC crowd is as adamantly opposed to civil unions as they
are to gay marriage. But it's interesting that they portray the
"incrementalist" approach as a particular threat. They know that
the American people are more open to supporting civil unions, and
that once civil unions are institutionalized, providing same-sex
couples with the same state-level rights as heterosexual spouses,
the game (from their perspective) is lost. Now, if only the "we
want courts to order full marriage everywhere today; who cares
about the backlash" crowd also understood this.