Apart from these differences, the rights and duties of the couple remain the same: in both cases, in fact, the obligation of communion and separation of property, cohabitation, moral and material assistance and pension allowance are foreseen in case of partner's death. Furthermore, both in marriage and in civil union the number of witnesses does not change (they can be at most 1 per person) while for the rite in church each spouse can have up to 2 witnesses. Obviously these numbers do not apply to more "practical" roles such as maid of honor or best man (they can be a maximum of 8, 4 per spouse), which may not be included among the witnesses, and which deal in various capacities with the organization of the ceremony and the day.
What does the catholic church say?
From the point of view of the Catholic Church, unions between homosexual people are not comparable to marriage between a man and a woman, because only two individuals of different sexes can generate a new life and therefore create the brick on which the Catholic universe is built: the family willed by god.
Indeed, from an ecclesiastical point of view, marriage is not a simple "pact of coexistence", but a relationship with a unique social dimension. For the church, it is the fear that this social dimension will be undermined and consequently that society will lose its generative and founding brick, which defines the impossibility of gay marriage.
Love is not all the same, true (and necessary) love exists only between man and woman because it allows the species to progress numerically; it is therefore deduced that implicitly, according to the church, a homosexual union is only a pact of coexistence, useful for the single individuals involved, but useless for the purpose of maintaining society, as god would have thought it. Equally implicitly, it can be deduced that since adoption is prohibited for same-sex couples, with the same incapacity for procreation, a heterosexual family is not comparable to a homosexual family.
Sterility is interpreted as a fault, a stigma from which only the normal family - that is, theoretically the one wanted by God - can redeem itself through adoption, recovering its officially recognized role.
As an atheist I think that when a god (who I prefer to call nature) creates something, he always does it with a precise function, with a purpose, and perhaps he would not have created the "love that moves the sun and the other stars" (cit.), if it didn't want us to use it to guide our actions.
My experience as a samesex wedding photographer
Unlike the Catholic Church, I believe that love is that feeling from which a unique social dimension is generated, and that this is the building block on which society as a whole rests: the family yes, but the family 2.0.
Large extended families, homosexuals or single parents, adoptive and inclusive families, all united and guided by the same sentiment.
Gay marriage photography
The wedding photography service that I offer to my samesex couples is exactly the same that I offer to heterosexual couples, but I have to admit that photographing a gay union has not only a professional meaning for me, but also a political one.
For me it's like making a small microscopic contribution to the creation of a more inclusive world, a place where all can feel protected in their way of loving and free to express their feelings in mutual respect.
Contact me to tell the story of your wedding through candid and non-posed photos.