Are you suggesting that I am not married because my wife and I were married by a judge rather than a priest?
yes, to some extent...
for example, if you’re Catholic (as I am), then marriage is a sacrament that can only come from God. no judge has that authority. no city or state can give that judge such authority. so marriage by a judge is a civil (secular) union by definition.
of course throughout our country’s history we’ve recognized all marriages performed inside church or outside of church (and even those performed by other religions) as “equivalent” as a societal nicety and so long as those marriages where MF marriages everything worked just fine because those marriages all served the same goal for society. from a legal standpoint, they have been equivalent.
however now we’re confronted with an all out assault on the concept of marriage and we have to explain why MM and FF relationships can’t actually be marriages and why it’s a matter of conscience for many religious people to oppose “gay marriage”. this unfortunately exposes the dirty little secret that civil “marriages” performed over the years by bureaucrats and judges weren’t really marriages at all, but were civil unions.
this is of course a semantic/philosophical point to make since not everyone believes in God, is a Christian, or is Catholic, but... when the rubber hits the road, every practicing Catholic will have to admit to you that a secular “marriage” outside of a Christian church doesn’t fit with our definition of marriage since marriage cannot exist without God, as it’s his gift to us.
under the law, a civil union and a marriage should be equivalent in terms of what the state recognizes (e.g. tax purposes, next of kin, etc.), but the term marriage implies something more than the state has the authority to provide, which is why getting a married in the Catholic church isn’t as simple as running off to vegas for a quickie wedding at The Elvis Presley 24 Hour Chapel of Love.
it’s really about understanding that the meaning of the term “marriage” has been altered over the years and is no longer being used correctly in this debate about “gay marriage”.