When the people who carried out politics were also grounded in biblical norms if not also in gospel, it worked pretty well to have civil weddings.
Now that they are ready to step on board any old fad, their mastership of that area of life should be stripped from them. Suppose the USA does dodge a bullet with no Federally imposed same sex marriage, in spite of the way the juggernaut is leaning. Other follies could follow instead. The airheads of government policy have not become any less airheaded.
Same with marriage, I think. People forget that the US is a very different country than any other in the world. We have God-given rights that the government actually has to acknowledge, and then a set of laws that are limited privileges that are a completely separate thing, that exist solely for the benefit of the government.
Marriage is an issue that has traditionally crossed these boundaries. People get married in a church, and then file a marriage license wit the government, and they've let themselves believe it's one and the same things. But it is not - not at all. And the difference between them is what is being used to bash the hell out of marriage itself, when it should be limited solely to that government license that has been allowed to be misname a "marriage" license.
But it is no such thing, and it has never been any such thing. It already is a civil union license. The government just hijacked the word "marriage" to hide what they did. But now that's come back to bite everyone in their keesters.