Government cannot get out of the business of marriage unless you are proposing to completely redefine marriage as a religious act and only a religious act. Quite frankly I would find redefining a term solely to shut up some homophobic, religious bigots offensive.
Marriage has always been about property and inheritance and thus requires definition in law and therefore the government has to be involved. The western church was a johnny-come-lately when it came to marriage, and if it hadn't been for the established church being handed the administration of marriage by a ruling class that believed in small government in the mid-18thC, we probably would have developed a system similar to France's with the only legal marriage being a civil one.
I do think that separating the two concepts, of "the blessings of holy matrimony" and of "contract law, next-of-kin, and insurance benefits", would help a lot to defuse the fundamentalists' criticism of same-sex unions.
We already have - it is called civil marriage. Personally I would prefer we changed to a system like France where the officiants in some religions (but not all by any means) were not able to act as registrars and everyone had to have a legally binding non-religious civil ceremony which they could then follow with whatever religious ceremony they wanted. Separate out the legal ceremony from the religious beliefs rather than tell those of us who are not religious we aren't allowed marriage but can only have civil unions.
no subject
Marriage has always been about property and inheritance and thus requires definition in law and therefore the government has to be involved. The western church was a johnny-come-lately when it came to marriage, and if it hadn't been for the established church being handed the administration of marriage by a ruling class that believed in small government in the mid-18thC, we probably would have developed a system similar to France's with the only legal marriage being a civil one.
I do think that separating the two concepts, of "the blessings of holy matrimony" and of "contract law, next-of-kin, and insurance benefits", would help a lot to defuse the fundamentalists' criticism of same-sex unions.
We already have - it is called civil marriage. Personally I would prefer we changed to a system like France where the officiants in some religions (but not all by any means) were not able to act as registrars and everyone had to have a legally binding non-religious civil ceremony which they could then follow with whatever religious ceremony they wanted. Separate out the legal ceremony from the religious beliefs rather than tell those of us who are not religious we aren't allowed marriage but can only have civil unions.