I too agree that marriage is a purely religious thing. It should be entirely in the hands of the churches as to whether it goes against their religious ideals to marry homosexual couples or not.

Nobody looks @ it in terms of precedent. Say if same-sex was legalized and a pastor refused to marry a couple then that would be in violation of federal and/or state law/mandates. When it would go to the SC it would mean that the Separation of Church and State would be null and void in theory. After that decision, the SC could interpret what a church/synagogue/mosque does as fair game for state and fed lawyers. Could you imagine a case like Massachusetts v. ____ Church? It would wreck the Jeffersonian model.

This is actually the main reason I think no "marriage" should be recognized by the government.  So the government has no say in it at all.

If you haven't yet halo, look over the thread and see that most people seem to support a system where as far as the government is concerned a "marriage" would be a civil union and that the term "marriage" would be given entirely back to the churches.   Thus your marriage license would become your civil union instead and once you have the civil union straightened out legally you could then go have a wedding (lets say your both catholic for instance) and it would be a "catholic marriage".

Then each church has control of its definition and the government keeps its fingers out of telling churches how to run their faith.  The gay community gets the equal rights because it is the exact same legal designation, and religious folks get to keep their traditions. 

For something so simple as that it would never fly   Still, the majority of US citizens don't want Village ppl parades down small town Main Streets.

Thats a silly argument.  Legally speaking, marrying one adult to one other adult is as simple as you can make it.

What if a preacher didn't want to marry a white and black couple?  And whats the difference between that and a preacher refusing to marry a same sex couple?

It's not about the preacher/minister/official but about the ramifications of a case if he refused to marry gays and the gay protection force or whatever the heck they use to advance their LGBT XYZ and all the hell else agenda takes it to the courts.  Then the courts would have to force the preacher to marry them b/c by the amended statute gays would be entitled to marry.  What results is the state telling a church (a NGO) what to do and separation of church and state is blown out the window.

SoCaS is there for protection of religions against the govt, not the advancement of secularization.

No one is or will be forcing preachers to marry people.  A preacher can refuse to marry two straight, white people if he wants to.

The funny thing about that is that if gays were treated equally then there wouldn't be "Village ppl parades" in the first place.

As far as most reasonable folks go and under normal circumstances...this is true.  But as soon as someone whose entire family has been married in a specific church comes along and asks the ACLU to sue the church to force them to allow the ceremony there.  Or any number of circumstances that could arise to create a lawsuit like this. 

I realize you're saying that you would be argue against that case (I think that is what you're saying here), but that is the type of situation that Halogamer is concerned about (if I read him correctly).

Just my take on it.

More or less Sqrl.  That case would be like the second coming of Roe v. Wade.  Talk about your controversy being ramped up in an already partisan America.