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The only argument I give credence to against gay marriage is that marriage is meant to facilitate the raising of children. Ideologically, this is true, there is no other reason to have an institution of marriage except to create a stable legal environment for children to raised. There are two flaws:
1. Married people don't have to have children. So they are not necessarily tied.
2. There are circumstances where homosexuals can have children, be it through adoption, or other informal agreements (EG sperm donors, "baby/sperm swapping" between lesbians and gays)
To address 1, perhaps the benefits of marriage should be stripped away for couples who lack children. Also, there's good argument for anyone who cohabits with another person (regardless of their romantic interest in one another), to get some form of inheritance rights regarding their property, eg, their shared dwelling.
2 is a stickier ethical question. I don't think Homosexuals are necessarily bad parents, and I'd say they're better then a single parent household, but I think man/woman, all else equal, is still best, and I'd say a significant portion of the population would agree with that.
I think that marriage is a loaded term. Perhaps all state sanctioned "marriages" should be retermed "unions", with the title of marriage being reserved for a union sanctioned by an outside organisation (like a church). IE you can be married before a church, be in a union before the law, but not necessarily be in both (my grandpa is in a purely ceremonial marriage with his current wife, for instance). In this way, Gays can simply join a church, or other organisation, willing to call them married. Or they could just self declare themselves as married.
It would be up to individual churches as to what criteria they set on "marriages".
But another thing to consider is marriage itself, should two people who barely know each other, that get married one weekend in vegas get the same legal benefits as a couple who've been married for years? And what of people who have cohabited together for many years? Should they be granted none of the beneficial property rights that married couples get?
I think that ultimately marriage needs to be revamped. Remove all ceremonial and religious elements, leave them to other organisations, only leave the contract part in state hands, with an uncontraversial title. I think that would be a solution that would please everyone. The religious right only care about the religious element, while the gays only want the legal recognition.
And anyway, how much harm is it going to do anyway, if gays get married? If you don't like it, well, you'll probably never see it anyway.
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