Civil unions generally confer rights including co-parenting, the ability to make decisions for a partner who is medically incapacitated, access to family health plans, and some tax benefits.<ref>[http://www.factcheck.org/what_is_a_civil_union.html "What Is A Civil Union?", Factcheck.org]</ref>
Civil unions appeal to people of many political backgrounds because they offer some of the rights and recognition of traditional marriage to same-sex couples while keeping traditional marriage [[heterosexual]]. Some social conservatives condemn the idea of civil unions because they condone [[homosexuality]], which they see as immoral, or that the value of marriage my be lessened by the existence of a near-identical legal concept without the social or religious history of marriage. There is also a fear that civil unions may be a first step towards the abolition of traditional marriage. This is especially true in those areas where there are civil unions, but there is still a push to have marriage redefined to include homosexuality. Other people believe that civil unions are not an appropriate substitute for the legalization of [[same-sex marriage|same-sex "marriage"]] in those cases where they do not offer the same rights as traditional marriage. Some also believe that civil unions create segregation between same-sex and opposite-sex couples under the umbrella of "separate but equal" services.
==References==
==See also==
*[[Same-sex marriage|same-sex "marriage"]]
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