[VoriEremiagem]

Although, I don't think the Church should see providing equal benefits as great of a violation of their bigoted stance on marriage, as compared to if they had been forced to marry gay couples.

Oh I'm sure they don't see it as great a violation. But religions don't really think in terms of "well, its only kinda against our fundamental beliefs."

But an exception seems easy to pull off, and I don't understand why it wasn't put in. Some other article I read said that in San Francisco the Catholic Archdiocese provides health benefits to "any unrelated household member." Which takes care of the discrimination issue without forcing the Church to recognize it as "marriage."

Since there are successful models to follow, there doesn't seem to be any reason for the DC council to be obstinate.