Washington Blade editor Chris Crain rightly takes aim at a Washington, DC, partnership bill just passed by the city council that would extend partnership rights and obligations to any two people, including brother and sister, so as to be "nondiscriminatory." The problem: instead of offering gay couples a limited step forward toward equality until such a time as marriage is accessible, it fulfils the worst nightmare of our critics by creating a "marriage lite" for straights that's a step down in terms of the traditional legal commitment (plus introducing a weird incest kind of blood relationship thing).
Sounds like Crain might have read this
column of mine from back when, arguing that domestic partner
benefits for gays are at best a stopgap measure (I'd now say
incremental step), and offering such benefits to unmarried
heterosexuals might in fact contribute to family breakdown by
discouraging fully committed relationships.