[Polybius]

Again, I'm not against gay marriage, but what's next?

Well, my wife and I are planning to marry our kids to reduce their estate taxes. :-)

Many property and tax rights are legally linked to marriage.

Maybe the solution is to grant everyone the right to designate one individual, and only one, be it their wife, their sibling, their parent, their Aunt Martha, their friend, their lover, as having the property and tax rights now reserved for married individuals.

Apart from that, the word "marriage" can be reserved for the heterosexual unions it has always been associated with and gays can come up with their own new word.

[Nowhere Man]

Many property and tax rights are legally linked to marriage.

Maybe the solution is to grant everyone the right to designate one individual, and only one, be it their wife, their sibling, their parent, their Aunt Martha, their friend, their lover, as having the property and tax rights now reserved for married individuals.

I've worked in real estate titles for the last year or so and in the field off and on for the last few years. I know when unrelated people buy a property to live together without the benefit of marriage, there is a rule called "tenancy in common." That means each (or every partner) can designate who get's his half (or cut) of the property upon his death. If two homosexuals want to buy a house together, they can just name each other to receive their share upon the death of the other. There are also ways to guarantee survivorship too.