It's much more than that as long as government issues licenses.
If the government quit controlling marriage through licensing, I'd agree that it is a personal matter. Now it is much more.
Example: Bob dumps his wife and two kids to marry Chad. Bob and Chad as a married couple now fight for custody of the kids. Who wins that dispute in today's PC world?
And now that gay marriage it legal, the Supreme Court will have to twist itself into a pretzel to deny legal status to polygamy...a tradition that has been around for thousands of years.
Example: Bob, Chad, Brenda, and Sue marry each other. Between them, they have five kids. Brenda gets a divorce and marries Linda. Who gets custody of the kids? How is property divided?
After polygamy, comes marriage to 12-year-olds. This was extremely common just a century ago in the United States and still occurs in many places around the world. If gay marriage and polygamy are okay, surely the tradition of marrying young "women" who have hit puberty will be recognized by the Supreme Court as being legal too.
Absurd?
Not based on the legal reasoning behind legalization of gay marriage.
In other words, it is far from just a personal issue. Whether you support gay marriage or not, the government's role licensing all marriages has gone a long way to destroying the institution.
You know i can 100% agree that the government need not issue licenses. But thats simply what we all know to be true and that is the government is too big and over reaches into whatever aspect of our lives it possibly can. What is the NSA snooping but another facet of that?