Phat writes:
... a church has a primary obligation of joining people in communion with God first---before joining them with each other.
That's why I say that churches should stay out of marriage. The "communion with God" mumbo-jumbo is an individual thing, unrelated to the civil contract of marriage.
If a minister wants to also be a justice-of-the-peace, that's fine. If he wants to superimpose some religious mumbo-jumbo on the civil contract, that's fine too as long as the couple agrees. But he has no business redefining marriage according to his own beliefs.