Joshua Kronengold

The problem with "keep government out of marriage" is the same as with keeping government out of any area of life: beneficiaries want the goodies, and social engineers want tools.

Let's break it down, government gets into marriage to:
1) enforce childcare obligations, of marrieds or divorcees.
2) regulate divorce -- everything from alimony (partly a payback for the usual prior division of labor which helped the richer spouse earn so much) to restraining orders
3) enforce/create conjugal rights -- spousal visits to prisoners, hospital visitation, insurance sharing, limited power of attorney, the right to bring tort suit for alienation or loss of consortium, testimonial privileges (can't testify against spouse even if you want to), automatic inheritance, etc.
4) create tax benefits to encourage family stability, producing (hopefully) both better families and a more stable & productive society.

Note two key facts: A) most of this just codifies things we more or less think of as naturally going with the concept of marriage. B) although a little of this can be arranged privately by contract or will, most can't because it involves third parties' acts and obligations (insurance cos., family court judges, welfare agencies, IRS, hospitals, schools, tortfeasors). Remember, law is codified custom. We codify customs when we have too big and organized a society to keep doing things informally.

Therefore, _if_ we want there to be something like our institution of marriage -- socially recognized and respected so that a married couple can and sometimes must act for each other in various ways -- then we cannot just let people call themselves married whenever they feel like it. We need some kind of definition, so all those third parties will know when their obligations arise.

If I could call myself married and demand social respect for it, I would marry a lot of friends just to get them on my insurance. I might marry people to get them green cards. Etc. That won't work.

OTOH, if I couldn't get the advantages I described because we won't codify marriage as a matter of principle, I would have a much harder time maintaining a family -- a point made in great detail by gay activists. That would be bad for me, and Naomi, and especially Grace. Probably, it would be bad for society if people like me couldn't do that. Het pair bonds are the statistical norm for humans, and it is just plain silly to not have some way to organize around that fact. So that option doesn't fly either.

Gays for now, and committed-relationship polyfolk probably for a long time in the future, are at an unfair disadvantage. But they are an extreme minority, and the majority need some system for recognizing pair bonds. The system is not _nearly_ so broken as to justify throwing it away. Let's keep tweaking it, instead.