The Church should have abandoned civil marriage a long time ago. Have a priest marry a couple, have the Church record the marriage, and leave government out of it (like Willam Wallace in “Braveheart”).
amen
I've noticed an odd sense of detachment among many Christians in this country over "gay marriage," and I finally figured out what is driving it.
Most committed Christians see marriage as a religious institution and simply don't give a flaming sh!t about what any government thinks about it.
“The Church should have abandoned civil marriage a long time ago.”
“Now, since the family and human society at large spring from marriage, these men will on no account allow matrimony to be the subject of the jurisdiction of the Church. Nay, they endeavor to deprive it of all holiness, and so bring it within the contracted sphere of those rights which, having been instituted by man, are ruled and administered by the civil jurisprudence of the community. Wherefore it necessarily follows that they attribute all power over marriage to civil rulers, and allow none whatever to the Church; and, when the Church exercises any such power, they think that she acts either by favor of the civil authority or to its injury. Now is the time, they say, for the heads of the State to vindicate their rights unflinchingly, and to do their best to settle all that relates to marriage according as to them seems good.”
—Pope Leo XIII, 1880
Freegards
Government cannot be left out of marriage. Too many things involved like property, custody of children, etc. Marriage is the basis of our civil, as well as religious, society.