Notice we haven't had a "The Bunny blah blah" style comic for a while? No? Oh, well then.

There is a serious note to this comic, especially from an observer in the United Kingdom.

There are lots of reasons why Proposition 8 doesn't make an awful lot of sense. Besides the fact that it proposes to change the status quo rather than restore it... (i.e. it won't force the indoctrination of Little Jimmy into the trousersnake club or any of that other - rather untrue - fluff)...

You see, back in 2004, Parliment here passed an interesting piece of legislation called the Civil Partnerships Act [full text] [wiki summary].

While it wasn't perfect, it did put into place mechanisms for same-sex unions that contained the exact same benefits and protections as "traditional" marriage (barring some exceptions which I cannot find right now). [here's a brief run down on the Wiki of Pedia]

According to the National Statistics Office, twenty six thousand couples have entered into civil partnerships since then, and while there are no explicit guarentees of happiness as far as any personal relationship goes, the island has not sunk beneath the waves or been consumed by fire as a result.

But, the most important part of all of this is that I have - like many other people - an extended family, many of whome are in "traditional" marriages. It might surprise many people who claim to be "Protecting Marriage", but they are all still married. My parents', grandparents', uncles' and aunts' marriages are not now shams or ghosts of their former selves due to the Civil Partnerships Act.

To say that the Civil Partnerships Act made their marriages worth less would be, frankly, slightly insulting.

So, really, I can say with some certainty that Proposition 8 is not - in any way - about "protecting marriage".

But who am I to judge, eh?

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