[Conscience of a Conservative]

I am not positive, and too lazy to research it, but am guessing when the constitution was written, marriage was something that happened in a church and just a religious ceremony and because of that, they never intended government to have any say one way or another... I would argue the government stepped over constitutional boundaries when they started collecting marriage license fees.

Government-issued marriage licenses date until at least 16th-century England, and were a feature of every colony before the revolution (and every state at the time the Constitution was enacted)

[AzNASCARfan]

Good to know... I was going to look into it after I posted that, because I kept wondering about it all day today...
I will say it is surprising information though...

I guess not terribly surprising after thinking about it though, the reason our constitution had the no mandated religion part was because it was in England.... so its not really an argument against it primarily being a religious ceremony, just that government has been involved far too long (in my opinion)...