Well yeah, presumably the State has an interest in encouraging parents to take care of their children, and marriage is by far the most effective means that humans have devised in accomplishing that.
I’ve had many arguments with some of our liberal FReepers who believe the State should butt out of marriages. They argue it is a religious thing and therefore, it is no business of theirs if homos marry or whatnot.
Nonsense.
Leave all the religious aspects out of marriage if you like, but it still remains a contract. A legal binding agreement between two people. And the state can no more disinvolve itself with a marriage contract than they could with a similar legal contract involving real property or whatever.
Besides, the State has a vested interest in healthy marriages and traditional families.
Unfortunately liberal democrats have a greater interest in replacing the father with a welfare check and making sure minorities stay on the plantation with broken homes and a broken economy as the result.