Hang with me here, long sentences. . . . The point being made as I understood it is that the words and wording had meaning and the meaning that those words represented was and are indeed real meanings.
Okay, I see your point. (I like long sentences and in many respects find them easier to follow than short ones that leave out a lot of information. Hey, I'm a lawyer.)
But . . . the 'words and wording' of what? The Constitution doesn't contain any language in which the federal government is delegated any power over marriage and of which same-sex marriage advocates propose to change the meaning. (I'm sure it's possible to 'find' such a power in the 'penumbra' of the Necessary and Proper Clause, but that sounds to me like the sort of 'activism' I'm allegedly engaging in myself.)
At any rate, my ultimate point is that I don't want the fact that there are real flesh and blood people out there, with tremendous personal interests at stake, to get lost in the talk about 'words'. This isn't an issue of 'words' for either side. I know people on both sides (including same-sex couples who have been together for two or three decades), and I think it's very unfair to characterize any part of this as a verbal who-gets-to-make-the-definition issue.
Marriage law pierced state boundries long ago, through full faith & credit.