The compromise was, and may still end up being in the long run, civil unions that would include any combination of two people, regardless of sex or familial relationship.  That way, two guys wanting a "civil union cake" could be just be e.g., two close friends or an elderly uncle and a nephew caretaker.

The Courts blew it when they took the word "marriage," a word which had an understood, yet uncodified (dictionaries aside), meaning for thousands of years in most religions and cultures.