Right, my point is that a law of the form "all references, implicit or explicit, to `marriage' in the constitution or the body of law, written, common law, or otherwise, shall be construed to mean `civil union', which is defined as ..." (nb! this is not proper legalese) is more viable than other alternatives, and effectively becomes a global sed on the whole shebang. This is generally what the proponents of getting government out of the marriage business intend, and it's the way many emendations of law work. (It's also why lawyers charge so much; keeping track of all of this and the implications thereof is hard. But it has to be done anyway; applying it to SSM doesn't change anything on that front.)