Aren’t their marriages just “Civil marriages” performed with a Justice of the Peace ?

THEY get to use the word “marriage”. We are “not allowed”. I don’t understand…..

[equality tax protest]

Marriages, while having civil and legal ties, are actually a religious tradition.

Where did you find this information at? All of the research that I’ve done have concluded the opposite. It was around the time of the Middle Ages (1545 AD) when Christianity started getting involved in marriages. Both ancient Roman and Greek civilizations didn’t consider marriage a religious event. Most civilizations just accepted common law marriages, as some US states still do today. And just because something is tradition doesn’t necessary constitute that it is right.

The real problem is that the word “marriage” is trying to be redefined to mean a Christian marriage to exclude anyone other than Christians. The word marriage is generic and doesn’t have a strict religious meaning particular to a specific religion. Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Hindu, Pastafarians, all get married and they aren’t Christians. As Americans, lots of people tend to relate the word “religious” to really mean Christianity, but there’s lots more religions and ideas out there in the rest of the world (and even in California).

I think that churches already have the right to refuse to marry someone in the US, since church marriage is optional and not required by the state. The only thing that is required is that you go to the county courthouse and fill out the marriage certificate form. You would think that if someone could sue for spilling hot coffee, then there’d already be a lawsuit from a one group suing a church.

Also, marriage is important for the state for taxes, insurance, entitlements, resolving legal issues, etc.

The reason why California can’t stop issuing marriage certificates is that all other US states would also need to adopt the same policy. Marriage certificates, like drivers licenses, are state issued certificates that are automatically accepted in other states. By having one state (or a few) change their terminology, that would require all other states to amend their laws to change it to marriage or civil unions.

Since the word marriage is already in use, why doesn’t Christian churches start using the phrase “holy matrimony” since that’s what is a common/traditional phrase used in Christian marriages? Since that phrase contains “holy” it implies religion and the phrase isn’t used in any laws, so it’s clean/clear to be used.