On the contrary. Even if we can't apply religious doctrines in our laws per se, we do not want to force Americans to pay for, or honor practices which violate their beliefs. It's even more important to respect the culture and tradition represented in marriage law when religion isn't available to justify it. If Moore can't point to the 10 commandments and say that they are the moral underpinning of our laws, all that says is that we have to bring rational arguments to explain them. If this becomes an excuse for mob rule or anarchy, which the latter I claim the marriage modification effort has become, then it only plays into the hands of the religionists who argue that without the 10 commandments we become lawless. In other words, if we can't refute the argument that without legal application of the 10, we're subject to the 10,000 (often conflicting) laws, then where is the victory in that? Freedom is not license. Freedom requires even greater responsibility.
I think the special interest groups on the left are trying to say that because Christians believe in marriage, it's unconstitutional. Christian ethics lead to laws that are arguably common with a fair amount of American law, but that doesn't mean that we'll reject them. But if our arguments about which laws are constitutional or not appear to suggest that any law that may be Christian is subject to such scrutiny, then the cries for theocracy will only get louder.
I continue to disagree that recognition of same-sex civil marriages will in fact dilute or corrupt that view [of marriage]
If marriage is defined as a sacred and traditional bond between man and woman based on religious doctrine common to most Americans and western civic tradition common to most other cultures, it really has no bearing on other relationships. If we change its meaning on our lawbooks, it still becomes something else. A simple change of law cannot redefine the meaning Americans confer on marriage by culture, tradition, religious faith, and by economic blessing. But if we do continue to allow this, we will be saying to children, "The traditional family unit is not special; it has no particular advantage over any other family unit." Marriage will in effect, cease to be useful to America. I'll be the first to demand that tax breaks given to married couplings (or tripplings, or quadruplings) be rescinded.
Even if we can't apply religious doctrines in our laws per se, we do not want to force Americans to pay for, or honor practices which violate their beliefs.
And as I've said, the only way to accomplish that is to make taxes voluntary. Tax funds are simply not distributed in accordance with the religious beliefs of the taxed. There are people who oppose military force of any kind for religious reasons; nobody makes sure their specific tax dollars don't go to the DOD, or even that tax dollars are allocated to the DOD in proportion to the number of nonpacifists among the taxpayers. I spend a lot of time in a local national park, paid for in part by the tax dollars of people who don't believe the government has any business maintaining such lands. You can think up lots of other examples yourself, I'm sure.
There will always be problems of this sort as long as there are taxes; marriage isn't a special case. (Similar problems infect public education, which can't possibly be performed in a way that pleases everyone who pays for it; the only way to change that would be to privatize the schools.) Either privatize everything -- which in this case would mean getting the state entirely out of the business of recognizing marriages -- or get used to the fact that there's always going to be somebody paying for something of which they disapprove.
This is why I initially suggested that you keep in mind the question whether any positive legal benefits should be conferred on civil marriages at all.
If marriage is defined as a sacred and traditional bond between man and woman based on religious doctrine common to most Americans and western civic tradition common to most other cultures, it really has no bearing on other relationships. If we change its meaning on our lawbooks, it still becomes something else.
Then I'm afraid I have bad news for you: it's already become something else. Civil marriage is not defined in terms of sacredness, tradition, or religion.
Religious marriage is defined in such terms. And private religious organizations don't have to recognize civil marriages as 'religiously satisfactory', as for example the Roman Catholic Church doesn't have to recognize civil marriages or divorces for purposes of its canon law. Civil marriage is already not the same thing as religious marriage.