If you want to get into a phiilsophical debate on rights, then fine.
No philisophical debate is necessary -- rights are not grated by states, privileges are.
The fact that marriage as a legal institution disappears once the legilsation that created it is repealed means that marriage is, undeniably, a privilege; the fact that the legal institution of marriage only exists because of the state passed legislation to create it means that marriage is, undeniably, a privilege.
Rights are the result of a social contract between the people and the state. The state agrees to protect the rights that are important to the people in exchange for the people recognizing the legitimacy of the state.
And privilieges are something that you can do because they state created the legal framework to allow it. Rights require no such framework; that you cannot get legally married unless there is a state laws that creates the legal institution of marriage necessitates that marriage is a privilege, not a right.
Your thoughts are simply an irrelevant hypothetical extending from a misconception of the origin of rights.
On the contrary -- the misconception here is yours, as demonstrated.
Our Constitution, which is the social contract between the people and the state has been recognized by the Supreme Court to extend protection to marriage. That makes marriage a right.
This is absolutely unsupportable. The constititon specifically protects rights, privileges and immunities; that these things are listed seperately illustrates the fallacy of your argument. That the Constitution specifies that you shall benefit from the right to equal protection when a state issues privilges in no way makes said privilege a right -- your right is found in equal protection, nothing else.
And since the Supreme Court has recognized it as a right, it can only be overturned by a Federal Constitutional Amendment.
This is absolutely unsupportable as well. All that has to happen for marriage, as a legal instititon, to disappear from a state is for the state to repeal the relevant laws.
No court can stop that and no court can change that, as no court has the power to prevent a state from repealing its laws.
Under your argument, only a constitutional amendment could repeal Social Security, Medicare, etc.
That's absurd on its face.