Marriage

Not to wander too far off this blog's intended path, but a couple of thoughts keep rattling 'round my head as I listen to discussions of marriage in the news.  I'd like to keep this to one narrow point.

From a social, legal, and governmental viewpoint, one of the significant purposes of marriage has always been to provide legal protection for women and their children, and, to a lesser degree, protection for husbands & fathers.  Where is that in the current discussion of same-sex marriage?  Government has a vested interest in promoting and protecting families (parents and children) because they are the fundamental unit of society from which social order comes (and a lot else), and that is in part accomplished by the legal contract of marriage and the benefits bequeathed therewith.  From a KSL.com editorial:

"Redefining marriage would also diminish the social pressures and incentives for husbands to remain with their wives and their biological children and for men and women to marry before having children. It would be very difficult for the law to send a message that fathers matter once it had redefined marriage to make fathers optional.   On the subject of fathers, by the way, social science is not ambiguous. Children raised in households headed by a single mother (the most common single-parent situation) face many disadvantages, often through no fault of the mother. It would be wrong to assume this is merely because the child needs just two people, of any gender, in a parental role. Fathers and mothers, men and women, provide unique role models and nurturing capabilities from which children develop into healthy, balanced adults"

When both partners are the same gender and their marriage, by design, cannot produce children, exactly what would be the purposes of such "marriage" from a social, legal, and governmental point of view?  Government and society do not have a vested interest in promoting and protecting same-sex unions anywhere near as important as promoting and protecting families -- the results of the two to society are radically different.  I understand the desire for same-sex couples to get the economic, legal, and tax benefits that married couples get, which seem to be the heart of the matter, and I think it would be wise for those issues to be addressed specifically without redefining "marriage."