I agree. what a lot of people miss in the gay marriage debate is that the government really shouldn't be involved either way. what happened to separation of church and state?

The problem is, even under the contract scenario, the government allows us families to be looters. Basically, when you tie tax breaks/benefits to any state sanctioned action, then the people have the right to restrict, limit, or sanction that action. This truth applies to marriage or contracts. The government should be out of the marriage business, AND they should stop all tax breaks based on marriage or family status. That is the only way to free up relationships from the entanglement of government. But as long as you are using my tax dollars, I HAVE A SAY!

I would tend to agree with you except for Marriage is largely a religious contract between god, man and woman to me.

However government has hijacked this to add a civil union to the marriage union. Whatever Marriage means to you, it can mean that, but only if the government removes itself from marriage and remains involved only in the civil union aspects.

People of all views and belief systems need to have the civil aspects of what marriage provides equally and the government needs to get out of the rest of it.