Folks: The state has no legitimate interest in your relationship as consenting adults. The state's interest in marriage is all about your kids. Period.
Want your relationship blessed by someone? Talk to your church. And keep in mind that the 1st Amendment prohibits the state from dictating what your church should believe.
In a rational world gays desiring such might well find their relationship "blessed" by some religious organizations (Unitarians?) but the state would be silent on such matters. But then, we no longer live in a rational world.
Nonsense.
Unitarian-Universalists, Metropolitan Community Church, Unity Church, UCC, Disciples of Christ, TEC, ELCA, PCUSA, Moravian Church, elements within the (U.S.) UMC, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Alliance of Baptists, and counting ...
Bingo, AustinBill!
"Marriage" is part of Natural Law --- whether you're a Methodist, a Mormon, a Muslim, or a reasonable Multi-culti --- because it stabilizes relations of the procreative kind, and thus unites children securely and publicly with their natural father and mother.
That's where a child gets his identity --- his sense of natural origin --- his place in an organic kinship system --- and the nurturance and providence of a man and woman who will show him how to be at home in this world of men and women.
Marriage is unique. It is not just a set-up between consenting adults (that's what private contracts are for.) It is organically intergenerational. And it is irreplaceable.