“Marriage is a societal institution not a religious one.”
All I know is that in the modern era the state has the power to punish one if you disagree with whatever they are calling marriage at the time.
I think one of the reasons so many accept impossibilities like ‘gay marriage’ is because they have been conditioned that marriage comes from and is defined by the state. It exists because the state says it does—many times you will read about some faith that believes ‘gay marriage’ is possible but won’t recognize their own members ‘gay marriages’ until the state they are in also agrees. Which might be more insane than actually buyng into ‘gay marriage’ in the first place.
“Now, since the family and human society at large spring from marriage, these men will on no account allow matrimony to be the subject of the jurisdiction of the Church. Nay, they endeavor to deprive it of all holiness, and so bring it within the contracted sphere of those rights which, having been instituted by man, are ruled and administered by the civil jurisprudence of the community. Wherefore it necessarily follows that they attribute all power over marriage to civil rulers, and allow none whatever to the Church; and, when the Church exercises any such power, they think that she acts either by favor of the civil authority or to its injury. Now is the time, they say, for the heads of the State to vindicate their rights unflinchingly, and to do their best to settle all that relates to marriage according as to them seems good.”
Pope Leo XIII, 1880.
Of course he was mainly thinking about institutionalized civil divorce and remarriage at the time, and the danger this would pose for society. If the concept of ‘gay marriage’ would have been explained to him, his mitre would have gone off like a rocket. It makes you wonder the state will consider a marriage in another 130 years.
Freegards