My opinion is different than that. To me, marriage is more than a promise between individuals. It is the recognition of the promise by society.
The government is not equivalent to "society" - My "Society" would be my friends, my family, my community. In our wedding ceremony our Pastor made everyone in the pews promise to support our marriage. They are my "society" - because I went to the courthouse and revoked a piece of paper in no way changes the vows I took or the commitment I made. It merely nullifies the official contract I filed with the State that would allow me to invoke govt power to enforce that contract, or deal with its dissolution. In real life I would go get the required Power of attorney and other documents required to make us defacto married, just as Gay couples do.
Were you to get divorced, I would not recognize you and Michelle O as married. Now, obviously, your response to that would be that I am neither God, a family member, or a personal friend (as in face-to-face, although I do consider you a friend). But regardless of your personal criteria, it is mine - looking in from without - that is the criteria that defines marriage in a society and its place within the society.
I personally would be a bit hurt if you chose to not see us as Married because I didn't have a piece of paper from the State saying so, because I do consider you my friend. You are right, that you are in charge of your own criteria. I am just not clear on why you are defining society the way you are..
If marriage is a fundamentally important institution for the furtherance of traditional family values, Judeo-Christian values, the role-modeling of healthy male-female ideals in children, etc, then how society views the institution and the individual marriages within the institution is of vital importance.--I view your marriage worth protecting because I view marriage as a whole worth protecting - because the society needs foundational strength, and marriage has always been the bedrock of that foundation. I don't wish to cede that foundation to the government that seeks to destroy it, based on a justification that says even if government destroys the institution around my ears I can do what's best for me in defiance. To me, the defiance is in saying no - you can attempt to destroy the institution, but this cornerstone will not be crumbled in my home.
And if the State is corrupt, does that not sully the institution? When the institution of Marriage is used as a cudgel to extort more tax revenue, is that not degrading the institution? When the state is itself hostile to the institution , is it not foolish to allow the State to be the keeper of the official records? Is that not ceding to it the authority to decide who is and who is not married? I deny that they have any such right. Marriage belongs to We the People.
This is why the Gay Marriage debate has always been stupid to me. Any one can declare themselves married. Anyone can pray before God and ask his blessing of the Union. Anyone can take a vow before their society of friends and ask them to help them uphold it. Making the government the arbiter of such things takes the decisions from "Society" and places them in the hands of a corrupt, hostile, power-hungry elite, who then will use the govt as a weapon to force others to recognize the marriage. It degrades it. Such force won't make you or I recognize a Gay Marriage as legitimate in our own eyes, but the force of govt may make us pretend we do so, and for liberals that is enough. Obedience and servitude to their ideals is the goal.
If Marriage is valuable ( and I agree with you that it is) then, like all religious precepts, it should stand on its own. It should not need the power of the state to perpetuate it - only the guarantee the State will not interfere - as it is doing now my charging a Marriage tax, which is really no different than the "faith tax" on contraception being put into Obamacare. The govt really shouldn't recognize Marriage at all- other than as a Civil contract between two private parties. Instead Marriage status used to determine welfare benefits, taxation rates and any number of other things - giving the Govt more control over the institution and what it "means"
