9th Circuit Court of Appeals: Still looney after all these years

[myotch]

It's not invalid. Marriage has evolved to where it is today regarding heterosexual relationships. Homosexual relationships can at best be a parallel, but not the same, as heterosexual relationships. Different dynamics come into play. Societies that recognize homosexual relationships, where given the same recognition as heterosexual marriage, are few and short-lived, small footnotes in the history of civilization.

The issues you now bring up:

Civil unions not being equal to marriages: From what I've studied, civil unions are identical to marriage in every legal sense.

For homosexuals who have children...: Here's where it gets tricky. There are cases where the pregnant woman gives parental rights to her lesbian partner, only to later recognize she is not gay and dissolves the relationship. Who has the greater rights? The lady who wants nothing more to do with homosexuality, or the lady who was given adopted rights?
"Same rights as married hetero's is quite necessary" doesn't quite cut it when one's religious or speech rights in her own home is compromised by a former agreement made in a different mental state. What's needed isn't the same protections as heterosexual couples, but a totally different set of protections that are not so binding on married heteros.

Preference of the care of the children after death should be spelled out in a will. Even for heterosexual couples, relationship to the children isn't a clearly cut legality. My dad died when I was young. He didn't have a will. What should have been a simple transfer of assets turned into a weeks-long probate case that addressed, yes, who I would live with, among other things (and the issue wasn't even a contested one). So, yeah, I'm aware of custody rights; I was given an early education in the complexities of custody law.