I really get irked by people who treat the laws as a moral compass, and have nothing of their own to add.
Laws and governments are not infallable. Just because the government says something, does not mean that it is right.
I really don't think the government should be too involved in the area of marraige (although, I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a damn thing about how married couples are treated legally. If Prof and Gonz want to enlighten me, that would be very agreeable, despite it possibly requiring me to alter my opinion). The Episcopal Church says that marraige is between man and woman, not man and man, or woman and woman. That's the standard I go by. Would I be opposed to gays getting married in a church that accepted it? Not really.
I don't think the government has the right to step in and say who you can and can't marry or unmarry. That's far too 1984 and far less 1776 for me.
The government is not the source of morality. The government's job is to govern us. Not to tell us right and wrong. That's up to YOU. Uncle Sam can't hold your hand and let you know what's right and wrong. Only your personal integrity and religious beliefs, if any, can do that.
As far as I can tell, in the Constitution, there aren't laws governing marraige. They realized that it's a matter of personal integrity.
The government cannot replace conscience. That's where we get all these problems from.
100 years ago, we had this little thing called personal responsibility. If your neighbor washed his floor, and you slipped, you realized that it was your own damn fault, and took responsibility for it.
Now, you blame him, and sue him.
It's forcing the government to become more and more proactive and controlling. Sooner or later, we're going to have an Orwellian government. Why? Not because of overzealous leadership. Because as personal integrity and responsibility disintegrate, the only thing keeping the masses from madness will be the government.
A democracy works best when people are honest. If people become so irresponsible and ignorant that they can no longer adequetly govern themselves, a totalitarian government will inevitably form.
It isn't the governments role to tell us what's right and wrong. By forcing it to do so, we willingly suffer under tyranny. Our decisions should not be dictated by what the government says we should and should not do, they should be dictated by what we know is right and wrong.