I’ve stated several times in the past my belief that the government should get out of the marriage business, due to the religious connotations of the union, as well as the social turmoil over what constitutes “marriage”. The the law package up certain rights, privileges, and responsibilities for family units, and leave the question of “what is marriage” to religious institutions and/or society at large.
Based on a WCCO story I encountered via Midtopia, a few American churches have started taking a similar stance:
The small, liberal church in south Minneapolis was the first of several Twin Cities congregations last year to stop performing civil marriage ceremonies as long as gay marriage is illegal. These churches, and a handful of others around the country that took the same step, will still hold a religious ceremony to bless the unions of straight and gay couples—but straight couples must go separately to a judge or justice of the peace for the marriage license.
“If you feel that gay and lesbian people are loved and credited by God, then how can we continue to discriminate against our brothers and sisters?” asked Rev. Don Portwood, the reserved Nebraska native who’s been lead pastor at the 120-member Lyndale United Church of Christ for 27 years.[...]
“I think both the civil and the conventional aspects of marriage are important, but they both have their place,” Campbell said. “It’s just gotten mixed up where they’re not clearly separated. I would say it’s only a matter of time before we move to what they’ve done in Canada, South Africa, Europe—separating out those two aspects.”
Runnion-Bareford, whose group led the opposition to UCC’s declaration on gay marriage in 2005, said that might not be as difficult to achieve as some might imagine. If gay marriage becomes legal in states other than Massachusetts, Runnion-Bareford predicted, then churches like Lyndale and Mayflower could find unlikely allies.
“I know there are clusters of conservative pastors in Massachusetts who have discussed refusing civil ceremonies so as not to be under pressure to perform same-gender ceremonies,” said Runnion-Bareford, who himself believes that government and the church have a joint interest in promoting traditional marriage as a societal good.
With a majority or near-majority of Americans supporting the idea of civil unions, but resisting actual “gay marriage”, heading down the path of unlinking the civil and religious/societal unions would likely be the fastest, least divisive way to achieve the end of this form of discrimination, I think.