What's the Problem?

Something I am trying to figure out in the current uproar about homosexuals wanting to be married is this: What do they gain from it? What rights are they being denied?

Inheritance? I don't think so. Homosexuals can leave their belongings to whomever they please, just as everybody else can.

Insurance? This is a matter for employers and insurance companies. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know that there are any laws that require companies to offer insurance at all; or if they do offer it, that it needs to cover spouses.

Taxes? Not exactly my area of expertise, but for a while there were complaints about the "marriage penalty," because married couples actually paid more taxes than two singles.

Maybe there is some material loss homosexuals suffer from not being able to marry, but if so, I'd like to know what it is. And if it exists, I'd like to know why it couldn't be corrected by simply changing the relevant law or laws.

Unless I can be convinced that homosexuals suffer some specific, material loss that can't be corrected by narrowly aimed legislation, but only by marriage, then I have to think that the whole movement for homosexual marriage is simply an effort to dilute the meaning of marriage.

What I mean is this: If marriage is not just between one man and one woman, but can also be between two men or two women, then by what logic can it even be limited to that? Why can't three men and a woman be "married?" Why can't polygamy be considered a legitimate form of marriage? Why can't a whole frat house be married? If "marriage" means any living arrangement among human beings, then marriage means nothing.