The best bet is not to get the government out of marriage, but for Orthodox and conservative religions to take their marriages away from the government.
That is, there is no real benefit to having a secular marriage anymore, or even to registering a religious marriage with the government. So couples who belong to an Orthodox or conservative faith should be married by their church, and not even bother to get a secular marriage license.
This idea can be given teeth only if there is an agreement among Orthodox and conservative churches to *only* recognize religious marriages conducted by them. That is, for them to *refuse to recognize* secular or even religious marriages carried out by others, including liberal churches.
The government will not like this one bit, because they want control over the *sacrament* of marriage. But because they have so watered down marriage with an “anything goes” attitude towards both it and divorce, religions can tell the government to go fish.
Churches have long held that they should “embrace the sinner”, but have forgotten that unless the sinner stops sinning, it is like drawing an asp to one’s breast. They must stop sinning.
So this means couples with secular or liberal marriages have to be remarried, at least “on paper”, before their marriage is recognized.
By separating sacramental religious marriages from the “scrap of paper” secular and liberal marriages, is the first step on the road to redemption of religious marriage.
“couples who belong to an Orthodox or conservative faith should be married by their church, and not even bother to get a secular marriage license.”
At least this debacle has a silver lining. We will know once and for all which churches intend to capitulate to the secular world and which churches remain steadfast to God’s word.
A church can meet anywhere and be of any size above one person. God is using the homosexual movement as judgement to test and purify His church.