I assume your two key operative words are, 1.) government - and 2.) marriage, as opposed to religion or culture? If that is true, then we are in deep trouble because legislators are not the ones who should regulating the definition of marriage because they are generally short on wisdom and intellegence.

The context of this question is whether or not same gender couples should be given their requested legal labeled position similar to opposite gender married couples.
We know that  same gender couples have history on their side of a united life style. In my opinion, they have rights the country's constitutions offer but, I'll remain hell bent for leather to maintain the definiton of marriage to apply to opposite gender couples. If a new word could be invented for same gender couple unions, so be it.