Well, I don't call having to have the US Government's blessing to get married a "trivial matter". Additionally, I don't think forcing 12 year old girls to get inoculated against STDs is a trivial matter either. To each their own.
Not my biggest concern either but if you're going to label yourself a conservative, it would help to have some conservative principles based on less government interaction. Instead, he wants to amend the constitution right out of the box. Politically, its extremely suspicious how he said he didn't have a problem with NY's ruling on gay marriage then says he wants to amend the Constitution federally to ban it.
Wow, you are trying to drag up the Gardisil thing again? Really?
I think amending the constitution wouldn't be the best way to go. (I also think it's practically impossible, no matter how good the GOP does next year, and they are going to do really good if they nominate Rick.) But we wouldn't be having this discussion if the people who support gay marriage actually followed the democratic process and didn't keep trying to sneak it in the back door. (Pun Intended.)
If want gay marriage, you get 51% of the population of the country to agree that's what the law should be. Not some judge in some state ignoring the will of the people and deciding he's going to change the law, all on his own, no matter what they said at the ballot box.
Obviously, there's a problem of two principles on the conservative side conflicting here. Protecting marriage from redefinition vs. the right of states to make their own laws. I'm not really sure how it gets resolved at the end.
But Perry is no more slippery than "The One", who also says that he supports the traditional definition of marriage, but his Justice Department (when it isn't handing automatic weapons to Mexican Drug Gangs) won't be bothered to actually defend the law Congress passed.
When did it become okay to put minority rights to the "will of the people"? If we had waited for the "Will of the People", interracial marriage would not have become legal until 1992. It was passed by "activist judges" in 1967...
Gays aren't a minority. Get over it.