| Not being a leftist, I don't think the government should be granting benefits for marriage, however, based on current interpretations of the Constitution, the government doing so is legal.
If you think of the history of the founding of this nation and you notice the language of the Constitution, the rights in the Bill of Rights were considered rights before the government was even established. The BoR was included because some of the founders made the keen observation that it is the nature of government to revoke rights rather than grant them. |