End all GOVERNMENT “marriage”. Marriage is a ceremony before God not GOVERNMENT. There is no battle to fight here except to get GOVERNMENT out of people’s personal lives.
I understand what you are saying, I agree the best solution given the current situation and state of moral decline the country is in is to get the state out of the marriage business. It used to be that having the state regulate/endorse marriage served a purpose by supporting the family unit and therefore our society. That is no longer the case as the word “marriage” has been rendered meaningless through our laws and courts. This started long ago with the introduction of “no fault” divorce.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t fight both battles. Fight the religious freedom battle on one hand and argue for getting marriage out of the hands of the state on the other. In the meantime- denominations are going to have to take a long hard look at what they mean by marriage and should set up a system of their own to regulate who is considered eligible for marriage.
The Catholic Church has been doing this already for a long, long time. While we have the scandal of “too easy anullments” that is an indictment of the people running the annulment process- not the process itself. Unknown to most, if you appeal to the Roman Rota instead of the local diocese, marriages are upheld 90% of the time.
Regardless, other denominations could set up a similar system for marriages or converts. Of course the criteria would not be the same as the Catholic Church but it would give them some control over the process.
What would be interesting to see is if people would grade the marriages differently- (e.g. “You two are Southern Baptist married, that’s a pretty good commitment our Church can recognize that, vs. Oh, you two were married in the Unitarian Church, yeah, we are going to have to investigate and you are going to have to go through our marriage prep courses and have a convalidation ceremony.