I welcome President Obama’s statement. The government has no compelling interest in preventing two people who wish to be a family from being a family.

I would go further: I believe that government should not license “marriages”. “Marriage” has increasingly been taken as a religious term. The argument against same sex marriage usually cites or implies religious sources. Let government give legal recognition to households or families or civil unions, period. That will deal with property, inheritance, who may visit whom in the hospital, etc. Then, if a couple wishes a religious “marriage”, fine, but if not, as is the case now with civil ceremonies, equally fine.

Each religion may define “marriage” for itself since it involves no one else. But society through government has no need to define the word “marriage” which is so emotionally loaded for so many different people.