Well, they are definite taking the religion vs state to issue here. There are two issues I see. And please note, I have no problem with gay marriages because to me, they are not really harming anyone.
1. Church vs. State and the entire morality issue. Obvious
2. Something I mentioned before on this site, Application of marriage benefits to alternative marriages. Not so obvious. Consider this. If we do allow alternative marriages, they get tax breaks, health benefits for spouses, and other nice benefits that traditional marriages get. Thus, if we as a society accept alternative marriages as a whole, your health benefits will go up (more coverage required in corporate insurance), taxes will have to accounted for and government spending will go up for pay for additional family/spousal services. If you assume 1 million gay marriages (I am making that statistic up for mathematical purposes), that is about 13 billion dollars that may not be taxed for 401Ks, 3 billion dollars going to IRAs, 3 billion in Tax credits, some other billions of dollars for head of household deduction, and some other billions of dollars in health benefits/costs.
