re: Doesn't matter now.

Quoting ~China Doll~™:“ To you it is just a legal contract. But to some, including me, it is a religious commitment before God.”

The legal aspect of it isn't. You don't need to get a piece of paper from the government to make a commitment before God, do you?

C.

This is one of the reasons that separation of church and state is important. You don't need to make a commitment before God to have a legal contract with the government, and you don't need a legal contract with the government to make a commitment before God. Putting the two together causes division between people who place more importance on one aspect of it and/or don't want someone else to have access to it because of where they place the importance - the religious or the legal aspect of marriage.

I think there should be religious unions and legal unions, and if someone wants both, they have to get them separately. So, if someone who is religious still wants the legal rights they can get them, but it's not a part of their religious agreement between themselves and God, and those who just want the legal rights can get them - this way those who think marriage is a sacred religious institution won't have to share anything other than the legal aspect with anyone else, if they choose to seek the legal union as well as the religious one.

C.