(November 25, 2012 at 6:36 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Marriage by the church and civil marriage are two different things.I'm going to call you out on this. When the Church had the authority over marriage - yes including the days of the Israelites - it was always a contract, and always administered by the Church. Whether that contract is administered by the Church or by the State doesn't change the fundamental fact that it remains "one and the same". It was a contract in the time of Christ, the contract was not administered by the State authorities, but it was a contract nonetheless.
The church imbues the act of marriage with some mumbo-jumbo which they call a sacrament. And they only allow marriages between a man and a woman. It's their institution, their rules, they can do whatever the hell they want with their associates.
The civil marriage is the real contract that two people make and the one that is valid in a court of law.
If you want to give the Church the full right to administer the contracts without any State involvement whatsoever, then you can do whatever you want with the State's version. Until you hand the Church the power to do that, the Church will defend the institution which the State now wholly controls. You should be in favour of such a move as it will represent further separation of Church and State.