Civil unions: Separate is Not Equal - Break down the barriers, and allow us all the dreams we deserve.

I recently commented on the movie "For the Bible Tells Me So," that I saw on December 4, 2007. Jacob Reitan, the young Lutheran man featured as part of the movie has written this editorial in the Minneapolis Star tribune (http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/12230276.html). Here are some highlights:

Over this past year I have stood by the side of each of my three siblings as they married the ones they love. The locations for their nuptials were scenic and special: my eldest brother, Ben, on the sands of a beach in San Diego; my other brother Josh, in the quaint backyard of the St. Paul College Club, and my sister, Britta, on the beautiful Mississippi River at the Nicollet Island Pavilion.

I look forward to the day when I too will find the love of my life. And while I long for that day, I know it will come with struggle. When I attempt to have my marriage recognized by the government, it will be denied. What came so easily for my straight siblings, legal marriage by a sweep of a pen, will likely only come for me, a gay man, after a difficult and protracted struggle. This struggle will most certainly come with heavy prices for the gay and lesbian community.

It is the price of pain felt by gay and lesbian people at hearing the forces of intolerance time and again demean their lives and love. . . ., it is the quiet yet ever-present price of inferiority gay people feel with the knowledge that in the eyes of the government, they are second-class citizens. This final price is perhaps the greatest of all, because it affects us all, both gay and straight. When our government fails to live up to its founding promise of equality under the law, we all have a hand in that injustice. We all, through mere association with inequality, are linked to it.

To those who are married, you must ask yourself: Would you be willing to trade in your marriage license for a civil-union license? If not, then you should not ask a gay or lesbian couple to make this sacrifice. We hope for the same things you hope for -- to find love and to have that love recognized with equal blessing in name and privilege.

We must come to realize that gay or straight, when you or I fight for marriage equality, we affirm not just the founding promises of our country, but we affirm also ourselves and our capacities to love.