Okay, here’s a case where legally defining same-sex relationships as “marriages” instead of “civil unions” makes a difference. According to today’s NY Times:

The Rhode Island attorney general said Wednesday that same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts, the sole state where they are legal, should be recognized in Rhode Island. …“This is about Rhode Island citizens who entered into a valid, legally recognized same-sex marriage and returned here to live and work,” [Rhode Island’s attorney general said]. “There is no way, no law, no constitutional provision and, in my estimation, no right to allow the denial of basic human rights.”

Here’s the full text of the attorney general’s letter. (Here’s the request that prompted the letter.) A legal opinion of the state’s attorney general has no legal force on its own, but it’s likely to be followed by state agencies nevertheless.

The letter mentions only same-sex marriage, which today is legal only in Massachusetts. It says nothing about civil unions. If the New Jersey legislature had just gone ahead and granted the M-word to New Jersey same-sex couples, their marriages could be recognized in Rhode Island, too. But it didn’t. So they can’t. It’s up in the air.

It could be argued that the New Jersey legislature didn’t follow the New Jersey Supreme Court’s order to create marriage equivalence for same-sex couples, because there will be no equivalence if those couples move to Rhode Island. This is an iffy argument, though, because it’s Rhode Island’s fault for not extending its recognition to other states’ civil unions as well as marriages. The right place to contest or try to expand the Rhode Island policy is Rhode Island. Also, this seems to come into effect only when a couple moves to Rhode Island, at which point the couple would, for the most part, be outside of New Jersey’s jurisdiction.

It’s possible, of course, that Rhode Island could extend its recognition to civil-unioned couples from other states. But the AG’s letter doesn’t say that.

So the point is driven home: there’s no status truly equivalent to marriage. There’s just marriage.