Please tell, exactly how the same sex marriage case that went before the Mass. Supreme Court redefined words by fiat, ignored precedent and short-circuited the democratic process?
Just because a social tradition has been done for a long time doesn’t necessarily make it a good law. For a long time slavery was perfectly legal and accepted. For a long time women were considered essentially chattle of their husband’s. For a long time, monarchs ruled by divine right and consensus on public policy was left to the whims of the ruling oligarchy.
If you can explain exactly why and how allowing same-sex marriage would be bad for sociity, I’d be quite willing to listen. But simply appealing to tradition for tradition’s sake is a stupid argument.
I think it’s also important to ask what is the state’s interest in marriage. IANA historian, but it seems to me that common-law marriage is there to protect the children by seeing that both parents are held responsible for their well-being, and to protect society from having said children dumped on them when people split up. With more and more same-sex couples adopting and raising children, the same logic would say that the state should consider these couples married, in the state’s own interest.