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I Now Pronounce You?

The conflict over the issue of same sex marriage seems to have reached a boiling point in society today. This debate has been sparked again by the emergence of state and city governments that have begun marriages without government permission or authorization. There are three primary viewpoints within this struggle, each with it's own merits. There are those who are against homosexuality and its acceptance, those who disagree with illegal marriage, and those who support homosexuality and gay marriage. The three sides of this debate vary greatly in how the issue and people involved are defined, their belief in the cause or consequence of allowing this behavior, the evaluation or values of the situation, and the jurisdiction of the government, religion, and society to propose or halt changes like these.
Perhaps the largest difference in the debate is how the issue itself is defined, as well as the parties supporting either side. The proponents of gay marriage have defined marriage as civil right of every citizen in America. This allows comparisons to Brown vs. The Board of Education and other civil rights struggles. The mayors and civic leaders who instituted gay marriage licensing are portrayed as civil rights leaders. Indeed, "testing the law is a civil rights tradition: Jim Crow laws were undone by blacks who refused to obey them ("Road to…").
Those who only oppose illegal marriage tend to define marriage as a social norm, not a civil right. Social norms are socially accepted ideas of right and wrong, whereas a right is something that cannot be denied or defined by the government once it is granted.
"If marriage is an individual right, then it cannot be a social norm. A norm is a license for each individual to decide for himself what it good to seek. How can an individual right to marriage exclude Muslims who want more than one wife? Or bisexual women who would like to share a husband (Gallager)?"
The definition of marriage from the side...