SSM's "statist orientation"

My awkward phrasing alone is enough to justify Michael's skepticism about my assertion of the "more statist orientation" of same-sex marriage, but I'll try to briefly explain what I meant.  I'm not sure that marriage as a legal category is fully distinct from marriage as a non-legal category.  As Don Browning puts it, marriage "builds on natural inclinations but requires additional powerful social, legal, cultural, and religious reinforcements."  Same-sex marriage, because it largely lacks the social, cultural, religious, and biological reinforcements, must rely more on legal reinforcements.  As I said, that is not, in my view, a compelling reason to oppose same-sex marriage, but it does warrant caution when evaluating state efforts to overcome social, cultural, religious, and biological obstacles to same-sex marriage that are not as formidable in the case of heterosexual marriage.