Just for clarification Lynn, are you saying the govenment shouldn't recognize any relationship at all as a "marriage," but instead as a secular partnership (if at all?)

That probably would clear up some of the difficulties people have in wanting to be fair to nontraditional partnerships in the legal realm without (necessarily) extending religious recognition of them. Still, I'm not sure how I'd feel if my marriage was changed from a "marriage" to a "civil partnership" in the eyes of the law. Maybe it'd just take some getting used to, I don't know.