“But if they are only married in the eyes of their church, how will that make any difference vs. simply shacking up?”
Because then they can present themselves all over town as being married and they will be in our schools, neighborhoods, parks and workplaces and before you know it, gay marriage will be normalized and traditional marriage will marginalized.
We can’t trust people to make contracts with one another, we need an all-knowing, sanctified, governmental apparatus to care for us. Something might go wrong. What about the children? /s
And without government involvement people can accept or reject those marriages as they see fit. As it should be.
Uh, apparently you haven't been paying attention, because we are in that situation RIGHT NOW. Shockingly, your silly government-issued pieces of paper didn't do anything to prevent it.