Neither courts, nor states, nor any man or woman, has legitimate authority to define marriage. God made marriage, and He defined it. Period. Sadly, many who are ostensibly on “our side” in this fight don’t understand this simple fact, and are therefore playing right into the hands of those who are intent on destroying the moral basis for, and fabric of, the United States of America. Pay close attention to what even your ‘conservative” political “heroes” are saying folks. Beware.
“What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
— Mark 10:9
Although what you say is true, you miss an important point.
Government has encroached on the religious institution of ‘marriage’ for the purpose of ensuring contractual obligations to children and to avoid health defects (blood types). But government always stopped at the water’s edge of religious rights under the 1st Amendment until now when 14th Amendment considerations have turned the intent of that amendment to encompass same sex marriage.
The encroachment is now upon the Church; that’s the point you need to accept. You may not like it but it is what it is.
To stop the encroachment and its attack on the Church requires not only a clear definition of terms but a definition that is carved into the Constitution in the form of a Marriage Amendment with protective clauses that bar other Amendments from weakening it.