Which is not, in itself, unconstitutional. The government treats any number of relationships differently for tax purposes, and even applies different tax rates for identical individuals with different incomes. So a disparity between individuals in one relationship and individuals in another is hardly without precedent.
The problem was that there was no standard definition of "marriage." If that estate has two dimensions -- one sacred, one secular -- then the government's aegis is limited by the Constitution to the purely secular one. To the degree any two people -- or more, for that matter -- choose to enter into a business arrangement, the government should treat them equally, including for tax purposes. But that entirely neglects the sacred dimension of the institution called "marriage," which is "an institution ordained by God ..." By insisting that queers and dykes could be married, the government in effect forced the secular dimension to be the ONLY dimension to the estate, which hollowed it out and further reduced the role of religion in shaping our society.
Nowhere does the Constitution permit THAT! And as we've seen, "marriage equality" has morphed into this po-mo juggernaut that crushes religious rights -- explicit in the Constitution, not established by mere activist precedent. It has also led to the Wonderland idiocy that is transgenderism, with all its reality-defying distortions and absurdities.
THAT is where the federal government overstepped its authority. I would hazard the argument that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction in the definition of marriage, and that it can neither forbid nor confirm the "legality" of a union between two people of the same sex. It can only rule on secular matters, not religious ones. Asking for a decision on homo marriage is like asking the Court to rule on transubstantiation or Original Sin.
That's exactly right. And that's exactly why "gay marriage" was inevitable -- because you can't have a Federal tax code that is based on personal or business arrangements, and then leave the legal definitions of those arrangements to the states. This is why the tax code has provisions that explicitly ignore state laws in some areas. A perfect case in point is a limited-liability company (LLC) or a limited partnership (LP) that might be set up under the laws of a particular state. The IRS only recognized three types of business arrangements for tax purposes: a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a corporation. Any LLC or LP set up under state law has to operate under one of these standards, regardless of what the state laws might allow.
I would hazard the argument that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction in the definition of marriage, and that it can neither forbid nor confirm the "legality" of a union between two people of the same sex. It can only rule on secular matters, not religious ones. Asking for a decision on homo marriage is like asking the Court to rule on transubstantiation or Original Sin.
I agree with you, but now step back and reconsider what this means. If the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction in the definition of marriage, then no government should, either. This world existed for thousands of years without marriage licenses or anything of that sort. It's very telling that if you eliminate extra-constitutional monstrosities like the Federal tax code and Social Security, there would never be any reason for the government to be involved in defining "marriage" at all.