The state simply stops licensing and recording marriages. There is no need to determine what institution is valid since there is nothing to record.
A liberal institution could “marry” three goats and a toaster and it would have no effect on anything. A Catholic priest could marry a man and a woman and, similarly, there would be no license obtained and no recorded marriage.
The phony argument over what constitutes a marriage would be taken out of the political realm. The IRS would have to find other means of micromanaging the lives of the people in that state. Corporations would have to come up with their own rules, such as “the covered entity must be human” or “the goat must have had the same address as you for at least six months”.
I do not understand why my wife and I (now in our 11th year) had to get permission from the State of _____ to marry. It’s indistinguishable from the feudal state, in which the lord/lady of an estate permitted envasseled property to marry.
Getting conservatives to fight over “gay marriage” has been a very successful trick by the left. It gets conservatives to sanctify the state while taking something away from them and making us look like prigs.
The courts have been a vanguard for the socialist revolution since 1938. One governor and one legislative body have the power to bring the marriage dictatorship down like Samson.
Sounds very live and let live, I like it. That being said, the nanny staters on both sides will never go for it.