Reply #51: Of course you can always get married by a judge [View All]

[Sebastian Doyle]

Or a ships captain, or mayor, or whatever. But my point is that even so called "religious" marriages are still a state sanctioned legal ceremony which just happens to have a religious ceremony in front of it.

The minister signs a document issued by the state, not the church. So as soon as the minister begins the sentence "By the power of the state...." He or she is no longer acting as a religious agent, but as a legal one.

And that's why you can't make a case for "Well lets give the straights one kind of license and the gays a different kind of license" because there is NO SUCH THING as a religious marriage license.