Friends with Benefits

Yesterday's Boston Globe had a lengthy article on the push by some legal academics to have the law recognize friendships.  The reporter did a fair job, especially considering who she had to work with as the designated skeptic (me).  The article does not focus on the SSM debate, but this issue does underscore, in my view, the cost of excluding an entire segment of the population from the institution of marriage.  Gays and lesbians understandably will seek state support through non-marital relationships, which takes us closer to a world where individuals simply choose the category of relationship through which to receive state support, and the state is neutral as to the form of, and committments embodied in, those relationships.  It is difficult to imagine marriage maintaining its privileged status (as I believe it should) twenty years from now if a significant portion of the population is ineligible.