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Or: gays and straights can give themselves the kinds of marriages, unions, whatnots each deems suitable for him, her, or them.
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They sure can! But you didn't follow through on that idea: ask anyone who's been divorced how that
contract idea would work!
The only contracts that are EVER valid are those that can and will be enforced. We wrote and signed a contract, but now I have a big rock and I'm saying our contract is null. What do you do now? Who do you call? Why would whomever you call take your side, do your bidding? Aren't they going to side with the person with the big rock?
Who decides whether the contract is valid? Who determines what
can be contracted? What is the punishment for breaking the contract? Ah shit, suddenly we need a system of scary police, scary courts and scary, written, BINDING laws!
(And since we're all human, we're gonna fuck that up!)
Mankind has not been able to advance itself without representative government. The arrival of representative government coincides neatly with society and culture becoming productive. It's not by chance. We need to agree on a lot of shit to get ahead, government is how we enable and encourage that. And here's the weird part: that is true
even if we are collectively wrong about certain aspects of governing.
So I no longer mind that government is involved in determining survivor benefits. Because I am weak, and many people have big rocks. So let's allow the gays to have government help get them survivor benefits, even if government involvement in this contract is a bad idea. The worse idea is allowing the inequality to continue.
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That mebbe gov is not the end-all, be-all; that mebbe folks are capable of gettin' along with things without overarching oversight and regulation.
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Folks are not capable of getting along without a representative government, period. I don't have to say maybe. Contracts must be enforced.
And in a representative government, "overarching" is just a big word for what everyone has compromised on so far; we can change it if we find it terrible. You didn't get your way on that: sorry, but that is your personal preference. You can work to change that but in the meantime we all have to figure out how to get along with each other.