"Debate Club" on Abolishing Marriage

Legal Affairs magazine's series, "Debate Club," currently features a debate between Mary Lyndon Shanley, of Vassar College, and Linda McClain, a law professor a Hofstra.  Here is the question presented:

Marriage comes with legal benefits, like the right to visit a partner in the hospital. Opening civil unions to same-sex partners would offer such legal benefits to homosexual couples, while reserving the word "marriage" for unions between heterosexuals. But some people suggest that, instead, the state should do away with marriage as a legal category altogether and adopt a universal system of civil unions open to all couples, while leaving marriage to churches, mosques, and synagogues.

Should states abolish marriage?

Rick