damo this is stupid, no one wanted to get government out of marriage until the gays spoke up. Now we have to do a kabuki dance to make sure gays can't have government sanctioned marriage, something straight people have had for hundreds of years in our country? What a coincidence of timing it is for that opinion to form.
Secondly, we need to stop acting like marriage is only a religious institution, it isn't. It has never been. Every "benefit" that comes with being married has been due to the government sanctioning marriage for thousands of years. The institution of marriage and government are very much related to each other. You act as if marriage is this pure thing that was encapsulated by the government, but the truth is, that's how it always has been. Marriage has also been just as much of a secular union as it has been a religious one, if not more so.
Do you know how much more laborious of a process it would be to "get government out of marriage?" Do you not realize how stupid it is to have massive reforms in how government handles and approaches marriage, rather than simply allowing another group of people to claim a word? Seriously, that's what this whole debate is over. Even the mouthbreather rednecks are saying stuff like "yeah sure... give them equal rights" We are literally on a standoff because one group doesn't want to give up their powerword.