"The couples most likely to secure legal benefits from marriage are those in prototypically traditional marriages. That is because most of what can be described as the legal benefits of marriage, though now formally gender-neutral, were designed to protect women from the risks and costs that childbearing imposes. Most research suggests that gay and lesbian relationships are most stable when the partners earn similar incomes and play similar household roles. So when gays and lesbians scrutinize the basket of legal benefits of marriage for them, they are especially likely to come up empty. The general rule in federal marriage law: The more egalitarian the couple, the more likely they are to face marriage penalties rather than benefits. "

An interesting article that investigates the question of what marriage exactly is. It was obviously never something that the state instituted, but not many people have really been asking exactly what it is that the state didn't institute. This seems to me to be better. No name-calling.