[JCBreckenridge]

Marriage is one of the three pillars of the common law. Removing a pillar isn’t going to get you where you want to go.

If you want smaller government, then the government needs to assert their authority in the areas in which they are permitted.

As is, the government will simply do whatever they feel like, which is a formula for unmitigated expansion. Hobbling the state from exercising their legitimate duties simply opens things right up for them to exercise illegitimate duties.

Arguing the state should not be involved in marriage really is no difference in arguing that the state should not be involved in immigration, etc.

[rollo tomasi]

Back in the day, that was the understanding, hence no need to federalize the institution since homosexual "marriage" was not even a threat to natural relations in the States. Federal expansion started occurring which then institutionalized the recognition. Then the 1960s happened and look what is happening.

Apparently the Libertarians think time travel is possible today so that people who try to protect marriage can go back and defeat the 16th, Medicare/Medicaid, Immigration laws, Social Security Act, etc. that officially institutionalized matrimony in the Fed government. Erase the sexual revolution and go back to the cultural mindset of the late 18th century.