^ You don't get all the benefits of a married couple if you are in a civil union. Namely, other states aren't forced to recognize the union, thus denying the partners' legal standing to each other in a whole host of matters.
Also, from a GLAAD write up: "According to a 1997 GAO report, civil marriage brings with it at least 1,049 legal protections and responsibilities from the federal government, including the right to take leave from work to care for a family member, the right to sponsor a spouse for immigration purposes, and Social Security survivor benefits that can make a difference between old age in poverty and old age in security. Civil unions bringnone of these critical legal protections."
http://massequality.org/ourwork/marr...ivilunions.pdf has a whole bunch more topics on the subject.
I'm opposed to 102 for two reasons: 1) Marriage is not the government's business. 2) We had laws like this before, except that the churches and government were using them against interracial couples, non Christians, etc. Nothing's changed.
And PHX, "getting married to a sheep, or horse, or house" will always be illegal. The evangelicals love to use that as a scare-tactic against legalizing same-sex marriage, what they don't understand is that none of those entities have the capacity to enter into a contract, which is what marriage or civil unions are at the fundamental level.