I think the government cannot butt out of the definition Too much eval and other status considerations.
It would seem government and regions could define marriage or juts about anyone else. Since the issue seems to me to boil down to legal and contractual issues, the people (the government) could make the decisions.
Two issues with that:
We voted on the definition in some states and judges overturned the vote. That;s wrong and needs to be undone.
Since there are contractual issues, how can we deal with different definitions in different states. When people move from one state to another the receiving state has an obligation to honor the contract established in the other state. IIRC. So, it may need to be a federal definition.
first sentence. eval = legal
government and religions