Redefining Marriage?

A right-winger recently advised me that Republicans and conservative christians are against gay marriage not to oppress gays and not for religious reasons, but...wait for it...get this...to keep the government from "redefining marriage." My response?  You gotta be shittin' me?!  So where does all of the "protect marriage" verbiage come from?  Oh, wait, I know.  They are protecting it from government redefinition. Gotcha.  Like a dog turd on my shoe.  You want the government to define marriage to keep the government from defining marriage.  

Arkansas, with all of our knuckle-draggers, amended the state Constitution to have an official government definition of marriage - one man, one woman.  I guess the polygamists are shit outta luck here, also.  The Arkansas legislature - under Hucklebee - enacted the Covenant Marriage.  Pretty much the only way you can get out of a Covenant Marriage is for your spouse to repeatedly beat you to near death.  I exaggerate a bit, but only a bit.  I think you can get out of it after the second beating or possibly the fifth adulterous affair - the spouse's, not yours; you can't fuck around and then claim adultery to get out of the marriage.  Not all marriages are Covenant Marriages.  Some are the good ol' regular get the license, get hitched, and if it doesn't work, get lost variety.  In fact, most are of that sort; but the county clerk is required to ask if you want a Covenant Marriage when you apply for the license.  I also wonder, but have no knowledge one way or the other, if preachers encourage/instruct/demand that their sheep get the Covenant license.  Seems like a bit of duress there to me.  What are you going to do, admit that the marriage might not work and you want an out, or do the whole newlywed la-la we'll be together forever head-in-the-sand and get the Covenant Marriage License only to find out that you married a jackass and now your stuck?  I guess that's one way to stop perpetual wedders - those folks who won't simply shack up for a bit, they have to get married.  Then, six months later when the sex isn't quite as good, they're ready to bail, so they get divorced, find someone else, and do it again.  Or already have your new squeeze lined up before you bail on this one, but I'm wondering off topic.  

Marriage and the definition thereof is a governmental thing.  It goes back to the hunter-gatherer civilizations, and became more so as furthered our civilizations.  The early marriages needed the approval of the tribal elders. Marriage has always been a way to define property rights.  Somewhere along the way, some asshole decided to interject religion into the equation and things haven't been right since.  

Yeah, buddy.  Let's enact laws defining marriage to keep the government from defining/redefining marriage.  I'll give the devil his due, though.  The son of a bitch found a creative way to try to make the argument without blathering skydaddy in the process.