Marriage: Religious and/or Civil?

It has become very clear to me that there is a big problem that is manifesting itself in all different ways: marriage is increasingly a civil proposition in addition to a religious one.  And guess what, this post is not even inspired by gay marriage.

As probably anyone who reads this knows, Jeff and I were married civilly, not religiously.  In other words, our marriage is not sanctioned by any religious authority, only by the state of Florida (and fortunately for us, since we are straight, the other 49 states too). 

When gay marriage first started becoming a hot topic, I immediately thought of Jeff and myself (though obviously we are not gay).  What about our marriage?  If the word marriage is only supposed to be used for religious unions, do Jeff and I have a civil union instead of a marriage?  Are we not supposed to refer to ourselves as married but rather civily united?  Is it OK because we are a man and a woman?  And if it is OK because we are a man and a woman, how does this not amount to government discrimination against homosexuals?

I came to believe that either the state would have to start calling all civil marriages civil unions and permit gay civil unions in addition to heterosexual civil unions, or that the state would have to get out of the business of "unionizing" people all together.  Leave it to the religions and allow people in domestic relationships regardless of their religious marriage status to have partnership benefits.  Obviously (or at least it seems obvious to me), it makes more sense to go with option number one, or some variant thereof rather than having the state get out of the marriage business.

Anyways, this is one big digression from what actually prompted me to make this post.  This legislation being considered by the Maryland General Assembly came to my attention today.  Yet another instance of a problem caused by the state and religions trying to do two different versions of the same thing.

Funniest quote in the article:

"While the bill may "intersect with religion," he said, it "would not excessively entangle" the two."

Honey, the two are already hopelessly, excessively entangled.

Runner up quote-wise:

""We hope it will be seen as a religious freedom issue," he said, because it makes it possible for women to "marry and remain in [their] faith."

Without such a bill, "women have to make a choice if they wish to remain" practicing Orthodox Jews."

Ummmmmm....  Does anyone else see the problem with this?  Obviously if the above are true, then it is the state legislating what religions can and cannot do, which I have a huge problem with. 

It seems like there are more and more instances of church/state issues related to marriage.  I wonder when eventually things are going to tip one way or the other.