Ministers Threatened with Jail/Fines For Refusing to Officiate at Gay Weddings

[Jenny A]

For most of Western History marriage was simply a private contract between two families and the state had nothing to do with it. The concept of the state granting you permission to get married by issuing you a license is a relatively recent concept and in my opinion....an immoral one. Marriage is a personal liberty and not some privilege that is granted to people by the state.....or a Church for that matter.

For most of western history the state and the church were essentially the same institution. And marriages have indeed been regulated by the state in numerous places through out history.

You make it sound like the state granted religion the power to marry people which is bull shit.

Not really. The benefits of marriage from a contractual standpoint, i.e. taxes, inheritance, duty to care for, etc. are all state granted rights that have changed over time. By enforcing religious marriages in any of these ways, the state is granting the religion the power to marry civilly. Without the state, marriage is an unenforceable agreement.

Marriage ceremonies were being preformed by religious and recognized by society at large well before the state ever got involved. State recognition of religious marriage ceremonies was not some courtesy as you errantly suggest. It was just a convenient way for the state to take over an aspect of peoples lives they previously had no part of.

Since marriage is a prehistoric institution, I don't know who you could know that.