As I've stated, the government is required to look for valid proof that a marriage is real, and not just a scheme to obtain government benefits like a green card or social security widow pensions.
In a straight marriage, proof of sexual consummation is a biological pregnancy.
In a gay marriage, I can definite it as being a platonic relationship that is incapable of consummation or biological pregnancy.
Now if I define gay marriage as being a platonic relationship, this will also include 2 male roommates who just want to legally share property. Now if 2 platonic males want to get married, then they can do so in a Private contract with their own lawyer. The 2 platonic males do not need to involve the government in their legal affairs or personal lives; and the government is not at all interested in such a platonic relationship. It would almost be an over-reach of government to try to control platonic relationships.
In a straight marriage, the government has an interest in the welfare of the biological child, which was one of the reasons for creating a marriage entity, and probably the strongest reason for a government-supported marriage license. For instance, the only reason the government will issue a green card to a foreign wife or husband is to allow for the foreigner to enter the United states to live with their biological children from that marriage.
Marriage is by definition a sexual contract, so it is expected in healthy circumstances that the man would want to have intercourse with the woman. If your lesbian friend married someone, then he would have the legal right to have intercourse with her. It would be very difficult for her to prove that it was non-consensual rape. If he paid her for the green card marriage, then she would go to jail.
Look, I understand that you are arguing that the government
should use pregnancy as the test of whether a marriage is legitimate or a sham, but the fact is that they
don't. Plenty of straight couples do get married and don't end up having children for a variety of reasons, and
under the laws that exist now, this is not grounds for the government to invalidate a marriage or deny benefits. Therefore nothing about your arguments related to sham marriages is unique to same-sex marriage. Everything you've said about the incentives for platonic friends to marry each other in order to receive government benefits applies just as much to straight couples. Again, everyone understands that
you believe the government's only legitimate interest in granting marriage licenses is promoting the welfare of children, but the law isn't written that way. The federal government DOES in fact provide benefits to married couples REGARDLESS of whether they can be proven to have "consumated" the marriage as you put it. When it comes to marriage equality, the question is whether same-sex couples should have equal access to those benefits. If there is no "pregnancy test" for marriage licenses for straight couples, then there shouldn't be one for gay couples. This issue is distinct from the question of what the government benefits for marriage should consist of.
