Assurnet, a couple of items:
1. You might be arguing against yourself. I think that there is some confusion engendered (no pun intended) by conflating “SSM” with the forbidden act. The forbidden act is one of the arayos, no better or worse than any of the others. Adultery used to be a crime here. Why aren’t we protesting decriminalization?
2. I don’t like the use of the term “Toeivah Marriage”. True, the forbidden act is called “toeivah” but that is not a halachic term. The Torah penalty is the same as that for adultery. Toeivah it is a term the Torah uses to describe an act that is not only assur but repulsive. Note that the Torah also refers to dishonest business practice as “toeiva”. nevertheless, Bernie Madoff is not chayiv skeilah.
3. Civil marriage is not, nor was it ever, about personal relations. It neither sanctions or permits those acts. Civil marriage, same gender or otherwise, is strictly about spousal protections and inheritance. Note that no penalty accrues to couples, SS or otherwise, that live together without benefit of a license. Many among us have established batei ne’eman b’Yisroel without bothering to get a civil marriage license. Being married K’daas Moshe v’Yisroel is sufficient.
4. I’m impressed and pleased that so many of the posters on this thread are not only good Jews but good Americans as well. They understand that the rights, protections, and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution are not needed for thoughts, words and actions we agree with, It’s precisely because that the Constitution guarantees freedom both of and from religion that we Jews enjoy a station in society unique in all of our 2000 year golus (per Berel Wein). Not even in the Golden Age of Spain were Jews so thoroughly accepted and integrated into the fabric of the Nation nor as free from religious discrimination or coercion. The same First Amendment that countenances license and debauchery is also the First amendment that guarantees our mosdos and our lives as ovdei haShem.
I once made a liar simcomment to Dr. Abraham Twerski to the effect that those mosdos and practices that we enjoy in complete freedom are the direct result of what he derisively referred to as the “sacred First Amendment”, and if, to enjoy all this, all we had to put up with was Madonna and a couple of Kalvin Klein commercials, I thought we got a good deal.