Rona wrote:
So although a church may not recognize our marriage, the federal government does, and that is what is important to us.
Rona, the Federal government neither recognizes marriages nor authorizes them. This is a state issue. The only Federal statue involved says that any legal and binding contract (including marriage) which is recognized in one state must be recognized by all other states unless there is a clear and overriding reason not to do so. So your marriage was performed/finalized/recognized/recorded in whatever state where you and your husband got your license. The other states simply recognized what has already happened. I know, this is nitpicking, but it does matter; otherwise you would have to repeat your marriage in every state where you wished to represent yourself as a married couple.
In fact, Wendy, marriage in the US is purely secular from a legal standpoint. Two people are married when they register their completed license with their county (or equivalent) legal authority. A religious ceremony or lack thereof has no bearing on the legal (or secular) recognition of the marriage. The normal procedure is for the minister to fill out the marriage certificate before or after a religious ceremony, but a justice of the peace or a state or local judge can fill that role as well.
Rona also wrote:
What it boils down to is that I think the definition of marriage is really rather subjective.
This is
not true. If you define marriage as being between one man and one woman, your neighbor across the street defines it as between any two consenting adults, and the group down the street defines it as one man with as many wives as he can stuff into his three-bedroom suburban tract home, who's right?
This is why we have to have a legal definition of marriage. One can no more define marriage subjectively than one can set the speed limit in a school zone subjectively. Irrespective of your opinion of homosexuality (and irrespective of mine), marriage
must have a legal definition. Since it is within the purview of the separate states to issue marriage licenses, it is up to the separate states to define marriage within their sovereign borders.
