Just want to point out the cake people. They just did cakes. That is my only concern. If the state closed a church, pulled tax status or who knows what. Other than that I want the rest to know this is where Libertarians have been for a long time. I think a good way to put it is..
“If two Christians wish to be joined in “Holy Matrimony” there is no requirement that it be recognized by the State,”
and
“If the couple wishes to later or earlier go to the courthouse and “make it legal” they can but that would be a secular ceremony.”
And before anyone craps on the original poster I am the one that used “that” word.
First, “Matrimony” should be the term used for Christian Weddings since its root is the word “mater” which means mother. Etymologically, it means something akin to the “the state provided for mothering”. That gets to the heart of the “holy state of matrimony” better than any court case so far.
Second, P-Marlowe is correct. There should be a civil and a religious ceremony that are separate. When a friend married in Germany over a decade ago, she had to separately go for a civil binding and then separately to a matrimonial ceremony. It didn’t hurt their record keeping at all. As a pastor, I would insist that “Holy Matrimony” be first.
Third, we can count on the fake liberal churches to copy what we do in an effort to distort the truth of its message. The truth will be, though, that MATRIMONY will always require a heterosexual couple. As already mentioned, the word “matrimony” itself defies pollution by a homosexual couple because they are incapable of the potentional for procreation via wed mother/father. Also, it defies polygamist pollution because the best security and well-being for both mother and child is in a monogamous pair loving each other and their natural-born children. Historically, it also defies polygamist pollution thanks to our Catholic and Orthodox Church brethren who have steadfastly held to “one man/one woman” throughout their history. (I say this as a Methodist, so don’t think I’m pushing anyone toward Catholicism/Orthodoxy. I’m speaking of historic Christian fact.)
While it is true that we live in unusual times, my understanding of the Greek/Roman culture is that it wasn’t really much different.
Christianity exploded in that culture when Christianity itself was the counter-cultural choice with its own churches, leadership, and affirmations of faith and lifestyle.