I think marriage, in the traditional sense, and by definition, has been abolished. It started when governments, local, state and federal first started injecting themselves into the marriage process. It was finished when gays were given the right to participate in the marriage contract in relationships that redefine marriage. ...Marriage was never a civil rights issue, but the government has treated it as one to accommodate sexual perversion and continue its assault on Western culture.
Would it not have been easier, in hindsight, to have changed the applicable clauses in the IRS regulations, and the entire rest of the government, to cover persons who have taken a vow of “civil union” as accepted under the regulations, and left the definition of “marriage”, with all its historic connotations, alone for the purpose it was created in tradition and the law, the union of one man and one woman?
But NOOOO, they had to get all “in your face”, in their frenzied haste to “throw off” all the symbols and trappings of a settled and generally comfortable arrangement that had worked perfectly well, even antedating the Christian traditions, and extending well back into tribal and clan roots, even before an agricultural society existed.
There ARE no new “family unit” arrangements that have not been tried over and over in history, only to come back to the generally accepted arrangements, of “one man, one woman”, with all its taboos and restrictions, that make for a much more civil and polite society, with its measured and defined roles. Of course family extends far beyond the “nuclear” model, but at its heart, the traditions are passed along from generation to generation, and no society goes far outside these traditions except at its own great peril, personally and for the broader community.