That is what a marriage license is; a state issued license recognizing the legal validity of a union.
Trying to take the government out of marriage is literally not possible since courts are an arm of the government.
I’m against recognizing gay marriage as a legal union because it think it opens the door to polygamy and even adult incest with it’s consenting adults bilge. Marriage is not about individuals, it is about civilization built through the biological family unit. Screw with that and you can stick a fork in Western Civilization.
Wrong. A license is the state assuming the authority over the existence of the union.
Under Natural Rights, the state doesn't have the authority to create, maintain or dissolve a marriage union. All it can do is accept the existence of the marriage contract between two human beings - a marriage contract made by them, not the state. If - and only if - that marriage contract violates a law somewhere, then, and only then, can the state challenge it's validity, and only to the extent that the law is violated.
What people don't understand is that the power of marriage doesn't exist in the state. It doesn't exist, and it never will. Because marriage is solely between human beings, before God, based on love. Under natural rights, those issues not not exist as powers of the state, and never can, and never will, because the state is, by definition, not human.
We live in a time when Americans have forgotten about natural rights - even conservatives. When they do think of them, they think they're some sort of way to organize rights the state should agree to. They are not. They are much, much bigger than that. They are an acknowledgement, by the Founders, that there are things that the state simply does not include, because it does not include it. Fish do not include bananas. Rain does not include computer source code. Automobiles do not include earthquake faults.
The state does not include marriage. Human beings alone, and the love they have for each other that backs their pledge to each other before God (or whatever they hold holy), is the power of marriage.
Giving the state the power of marriage is the abandonment of our very humanity itself.