If there’s a word that strikes at the heart of our society’s longing for perfection, it’s marriage. We’re dismally bad at it, as the nation’s divorce rate can attest, but just about everyone aspires to a happy marriage, blessed with kids and a long life of sharing each other’s innermost hopes and dreams.

Many gays and lesbians have the same aspirations. But even many of us heterosexuals who decry discrimination based on sexual orientation for jobs, housing or other basic rights freeze when confronted with the words “gay marriage.”

Eek! It’s as if a mouse had crawled up a leg.

Yikes! It’s more than even some self-described liberals can take, particularly many of the Democrats running for president. Most were quick to clarify their support for same-sex civil unions without coming close to blessing the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s controversial ruling this week forbidding discrimination of gays and lesbians in seeking marriage licenses. Now the state legislature must figure out what to do, but public opinion is not on the court’s side.

Most Americans say they’re against gay marriage. But ask them about civil unions that would grant gay couples the same rights that married straight couples enjoy to benefits, such as health care and inheritance of property, and 51 percent of Americans approve, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll.

All our angst is tied up in the word marriage. As with abortion rights, this is a nation divided in shades of gray. It’s a deep-seated belief that marriage should be only between a man and a woman — a spiritual underpinning of virtually every faith and societal norm.

Already, 37 states have defined marriage for heterosexuals only. Even President Bill “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” Clinton, seeing the poll numbers in a re-election year, gave the nod to Congress to pass a 1996 law that allows states not to recognize gay unions.

Now there’s talk of a constitutional amendment that would declare marriage is solely the union of a man and woman.

Except. Well, this nation’s Constitution is supposed to grant equal rights to all. Throughout our history, the courts have had to sort out the very real inequities between what the Constitution implied and what American society and bad state and federal laws allowed. We’ve had plenty of ugly experiences to know that America hasn’t always treated people fairly based on their race or sex or national origin.

Conservatives are calling the Massachusetts ruling “judicial tyranny,” the end of civilized society and a pox on the family. But as the Massachusetts court pointed out, “Recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of the same sex will not diminish the validity or dignity of opposite-sex marriage, any more than recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of a different race devalues the marriage of a person who marries someone of her own race.” (Not that long ago most people thought that way, too.)

Gays getting married won’t threaten my marriage one iota. I don’t fear my children becoming gay because a state law would allow gay marriage. I don’t fear that a civil marriage license would force anyone to change his or her deeply held personal beliefs in what constitutes spiritual salvation. (Our maker will sort that out.)

There’s nothing in a civil proceeding to force a church, temple, mosque or other house of worship to marry same-sex couples if that religious creed finds it offensive to do so. In fact, that would be an unconstitutional attack on freedom of religion.

When the seven gay or lesbian couples who sued in Massachusetts were turned away from getting marriage licenses, many had lived together for decades–longer than many heterosexuals have ever lasted in the “sanctity” of their marriage. Some of those gay couples are raising children. They struggle with paying their bills, caring for their loved ones when they become sick and all the other trials and tribulations that any family faces.

Call it a civil union or a government-sanctioned domestic partnership, if it makes you feel better. It’s still two people making a commitment to one another–a marriage. We don’t have to embrace it. We don’t have to celebrate it. But a ban on gay unions does not strengthen the institution of marriage, any more than allowing gays to get state marriage licenses would hurt anyone.

Myriam Marquez is an editorial page columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Her e-mail address is mmarquez@orlandosentinel.com.