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I've heard a lot of people decry platypus's claim that the same criteria used to support homosexual marriage could be used to support incestuous marriages, polygamy, or bestial marriages, but I've heard few marriages. The introduction of interracial marriage is merely a red herring -- irateplatypus is making a valid point. Of course, I disagree with him.
Bestiality is the easy one. We condemn bestiality because it is not a consensual relationship. But homosexual relationships are consensual.
Polygamy is only slightly more difficulty. Part of the main reason the state does and should support marriage as a civil, and not 'merely' a religious, institution, is to promote a stable family life. Stable families help keep society stable. But I doubt that polygamy would tend to produce stable families. I doubt that it ever does; I certainly doubt that it would in our society, with that persistent myth of the ideal mate. And the same argument goes for incestuous relationships. Father/daughter or mother/son (or father/son or mother/daughter) sexual relationships would be inherently exploitative. Brother/sister (or brother/brother or sister/sister) relationships would probably also often be exploititative, though not to the same extent. But even if they're not, it seems that this is a breach of the stable family, that the existence of these relationships would tend, at the very least, to render familial relationships more unstable, and the government hardly has an obligation to support relationships that make society unstable.
But homosexual marriages do not seem to be inherently unstable in the same way; rather, they would seem to fulfill the same stabilizing role as heterosexual marriages.
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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."
"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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