Letters to the Editor
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The "Legal" is no justification
I think the one error the essay writer made was not mentioning the legal steps she's taken, because this opened the door for traditionalists to make bad-faith arguments for marriage.
Given common law marriage and civil partner regulations in Californal, it's pretty much a given she can obtain many legal benefits of marriage without a wedding, and cover others with contracts and wills. This includes agreements about child support and custody.
The fact is, with civil partnerships and other measures being offered up in response to the gay marriage debate, there is increasingly no legal reason to get married beyond a tax break, and even this has eroded.
This is why homophobes and theocrats include anti-civil union language in anti-gay marriage legislation. Their goal is not only to block gay unions, it's to restore a questionable legal force to traditional meanings of marriage.
I think a more just society would reduce marraige to purely symbolic status. Separating the legal obligations of partnership and parenting wouldn't kill the institution, but it would remove a great deal of the baggage and undeserved moral power.