I agree. This has been a major problem with the pro-marriage, pro-reason side all along. We should have simply said that marriage requires both sexes; no moral judgments required. It is what it is.
Not exactly keeping your personal beliefs out of it, there.
Your inner libertarian is confused. Homosexuals were already free to make the wrong choice, but now your inner libertarian is forcing state governments to validate their private behavior. Not so libertarian after all.
I'm actually laughing since your example of a "personal belief" is not actually a personal anything. It's about all the fact one can get in regards to what marriage is. Social construct defined by the society using it.
Furthermore, my libertarian nature isn't confused at all. My libertarian nature is screaming "why can't we just have the government stop licensing marriage!?!"
But nobody wants to the intelligent thing, so we are stuck with this really, really, really stupid fight (<-- there is your personal belief, fistful, for future reference)
If .gov is handing out marriage licenses, than they have to hand them out to everyone. All consenting adults. Straight marriage, interracial marriage, gay marriage, plural marriage, incestual marriage (which grosses me the *expletive deleted*ck out, but consenting adults and i don't think they should be allowed to have biological children)
It's not about what you think marriage should be. It's not about what I think marriage should be. It's just the nature of this beast.
Second, the 14th does cover this. Yes, it probably covers a lot more than we'd like these days, and yes, that does screw employers who have to give health insurance to spouses. The US is both a lot bigger and a lot smaller than it was when that clause was written. People move from state to state. Communication from state to state happens in the blink of an eye. Our country is becoming more and more homogeneous. Which means more rights not explicitly covered (9th) are more relevant on a federal level (14th)
If marriage is a "right" than it's a federal issue. If marriage isn't a "right", well, than, go for that argument. Good luck. It didn't work with healthcare, and marriage as a right is even more easy to push than flipping healthcare.
As far as people getting screwed. Ha-ha! Welcome to the problems inherent in having the government define marriage.