Whatever you understand under "civil union", prop 8 was not about it. It was specifically about "marriage". All the rest was already covered by California law. You can say it looks like "separate but equal" and benefits and other equality measures in domestic partnerships are not enough and only full recognition of same-sex unions as "marriage" is true equality. That's fine. But that doesn't make those who supported prop 8 opposition to civil unions or domestic partnerships as they are called in CA - in fact, domestic partnerships by that time in California were done deal and had the same status with regard to all law and benefits as marriage. But they could not be called marriage and were separate and different status. That was what prop 8 was about, not opposition to civil unions. Those are just different things.
> in fact, domestic partnerships by that time in California were done deal and had the same status with regard to all law and benefits as marriage.
They couldn't have. The federal government does not recognize civil unions, and many of the benefits of marriage come in through federal law. Even with that corner of DOMA being repealed, a state can still effectively cut people off from the vast majority of marriage benefits simply by offering only "civil unions" and not true marriage.
Your misunderstanding of this point is exactly what I was getting at with the post above - one characteristic that is inextricably linked to things like the Prop 8 debate is that a huge percentage of people taking part in it simply don't understand the basic facts of the situation.
I wasn't talking about federal benefits, I was talking about California specifically and the state law in California.
What I am not getting here is how California could control federal benefits? Could you specify which vast majority of benefits prop 8 would cut off? It certainly does not include insurance, taxes, pension, unemployment & disability benefits, survivor benefits, etc. as I see that those are covered by California domestic partnership law. As for federal ones, doesn't federal government controls those? Obama issuing regulation to equate benefits of domestic partnerships to those of marriages certainly suggests it is under federal control - otherwise why would the President do it?
