A dead-end proposal

This is going nowhere, for a couple of reasons. First off it disenfranchises a significant portion of American tax-payers, including the all powerful AARP. We do not disenfranchise people, that's not what America is all about. On the other hand, we are good at maintaining the status-quo with white knuckles if need be, no matter how much the franchise (whichever it is) is being extended beyond our borders. But it's an interesting idea anyway, and may even provide increased tax revenues!

The rallying cry against same-sex marriage is that children need a parent of both sexes in order to develop correctly. In fact, the majority of the hubub is over Save The Children! Which is bunkum, but that hasn't stopped politics in the past.

This seems to imply that you marry in order to have children. This isn't the case for an increasing percentage of married couples (under existing laws no less), so I challenge this assumption. That being said, there are ways to address this problem.

Make marriage rights contingent on dependents. This will require setting up a separate legal framework, such as civil unions, to bequeath the other married rights such as default inheritance, visitation rights, and ability to make medical decisions without a lot of pre-existing paperwork. 'Married filing jointly' can be kept, relegating the civilly united to independent Filer status.

Marriage would be a legally recognized relation state between two adults who intend to raise children. A tax return with the required declared dependent(s) has to be in within five years of filing for marriage, or you forfeit the five years of tax benefits. A civil union can be converted into a marriage at any time, so long as the dependent(s) show up in good time. Divorce before the dependents show up, pay the tax penalty.

The Marriage survives after the last child stops being a dependent. However, this status does not follow after divorce. Once the Marriage is dissolved, the two members start from scratch with their next civil union/marriage.

This has several merits:

1. It provides a disincentive for divorce.
2. It provides more tax revenue, as the numbers of 'married filing jointly' will fall.
3. It provides an incentive to keep the birth-rate above 2.0.
   
4. It restricts marriage to those who intend to raise children.

This'll never fly since AARP members who file jointly would be summarily kicked off that status. But still, it does seem to address the prime claim of the same-sex marriage detractors.