Quote Originally Posted by Kihari View Post
The thing about marriage (at least in this country) is that it is a religious construct controlled mainly by the folks in charge of religious organizations; yet being married entitles one to certain legal and social benefits, despite that little thing called the separation of church and state I've heard so much about. Equally beneficial "domestic partnerships" and the like are the obvious solution to this, but in my state and in many others, even those sorts of unions are neither issued nor legally recognized (in case you happen to have been issued one elsewhere).

I don't want to delve into a discussion on religion, but I'll say this: for something I do not participate in, Christianity has a startlingly powerful stranglehold on things like this in my personal life. This makes zero sense to me.



No, but I guess that's just me.
You can have a marriage license issued by a court system, you do not need any sort of contact with any person in any religious organization at any time to become lawfully wedded. This is not a Church and State situation, there is no respect to specific religion, and non-religious people have a perfectly viable means of becoming married through the courts. Various religions practice marriage, and given that a vast majority of Americans practice some sort of religion, it's just practical that the religious leaders sign the marriage license.