"Civil unions are no longer viable as a compromise."
Should business partnerships be unviable too?
you state a non sequiter.
Civil unions are to be a legal recognition of sexual relations which do not have the remotest possibility of producing natural chidren from those sexual relations.
Business parnerships are to make money. Parnerships have contractual agreements which do not change year to year by act of legislature. Businss partnerships are artificial entitites (part the reason corporations have to use lawyers in a courtroom, can't represent yourself if you are not a person)
Civil unions are essentially a legal construct of marriage lite which is dedicated to the production of orgasms instead of children. Marriage is an institution, society rewards the institution not the individual in the institution.