Who is and is not allowed to marry.

The court decision about proposition 8 in California was all over the radio news here this morning. 

There will always be disagreements among people about what should and should not be done; given this, in general shouldn't our default status be to allow freedoms rather than deny them?  This is supposed to be the United States after all. 

In the past it was illegal for interracial couples to be married in most states of the US.  However, this was overturned by a 1967 Supreme Court decision.  (Link)  In the US, we all know people of different races.  In the same vein, we all know people that are gay or lesbian; we just may not realize it.  They are people too and, just like people of different races, should be entitled to same rights as all of us. 

There are many levels to the marriage argument.  One is: why is the government involved in recognizing marriage in the first place?  However, the fact is, our governments are involved in recognizing marriage.  Because of this, and the first amendment, the government can not recognize a specific religions interpretation of the rules of marriage. 

There is this idea that gay and lesbian marriages will somehow undermine the institution of marriage.  Marriage is a lot of things.  It is not just for the people getting married; it is also for their families and community.  However, one of the largest components of marriage is that it is a commitment. How would people wanting to publicly and legally make a commitment to each other undermine this?  If anything the legalization and dramatic increase in the rates of divorce have undermined the commitment of marriage more than anything else.  (I am not necessarily blanketly against divorce; I am using this as an example.)  Shouldn't the people that are against gay marriage, because it undermines marriage, be even more against divorce and trying to outlaw divorce? 

There are other issues as well.  Why is polygyny (or polyandry for that matter) illegal in the US?  It is traditional in many cultures and legal in many other countries.  Would families with more than one wife that are immigrating to the US have to select one wife and leave the rest behind?--breaking up a family because of US laws.  What happened to family values?  Furthermore, for the people that say US laws should be based on the Bible (I do not agree with this however); polygyny is mentioned several times in the Bible.  I know that many Christians in the US are not opposed to gay and lesbian marriage, but of the Christian organizations that are because of a biblical basis, should they also be in favor of legalizing polygyny?