I just entered the above two words into Google and the few that popped up included 'opposite sex,' 'man and woman.' I say a few because most of the search was referencing the legal 'stuff' going on as I write this.
A secondary definition states marriage is the period that the contractual agreement lasts.
There's a Biblical mishegas that I didn't pursue.
So all I want to say here before The Supremes sing some song in legalese is this:
Since we are not a theocracy based on The Bible, as much as The Bible fans pray it be so, then let's take that ostensible Word of God source of definition off the table of our revolutionary Constitution written based on The Enlightenment, shall we?
Now all we've got left is the secular and democratic choice to define marriage.
Just who and how does a free society do this?
The majority of citizens under thirty, as usual, have done so: Gender, like race, has no place in the definition of marriage.
Let the will of the people, not the blind bias both decisions, DOMA and Don't Ask Don't Tell, persist. Marriage is a legal contract with social and economic rights and obligations. Any added attributes of race, gender, etc. are irrational bs rooted in accidents of history, patriarchy, and power.
Whatever narrowing, harrowing ruling The Supreme Court, the bunch that gave us Bush as President, makes today, We The People define marriage. As Melissa Harris-Perry's dad would say, 'the struggle continues.'