Fifty-seven percent of Americans now favor granting same-sex couples civil unions, but 53 percent say they oppose same-sex marriage, according to the Pew Research Center.
The group polled 4,013 adults in August.
Glenn Stanton, director of family formation studies at Focus on the Family, said while many people may think of civil unions as a reasonable compromise, a recent ruling on them by the California Supreme Court exposes the truth.
"They said that even though same-sex partners have all the rights and benefits of marriage in California except the name, they said that it is still, basically, 'Back of the bus.' It's still discrimination," Stanton explained.
He added that activists will not stop at civil unions.
"It is going to be marriage, or it's going to be nothing," he said.
He noted that people highly affirm marriage, because they know intuitively the value of marriage.
"Marriage is the way that all societies, not just Christian societies or Western societies, but all human societies have done that," he said. "And each of them has marriage because every child needs a mother and a father."
