Governments are IN the marriage game, and have to be. It’s not about defining marriage, it’s about protecting rights.

Marriage in the legal sense is essentially a contract. A contract that extends various rights and responsibilities to the participatory parties. In order for the government to legally recognize the contract, and therefore adjudicate it when in dispute, the contract must be legal under the law.

Churches have no legal right to adjudicate disputed marriages and therefore do not have the right to define what is a valid marriage contract and what isn’t.

Hence, it is impossible for government to “stay out of marriage” unless all married persons wish to have churches making rulings on marriage when there are disputes.

What is actually more vexing is how the Church would determine the true marital status of converts. Say a convert couple got married in a Catholic ceremony, but declined to go through with a civil ceremony because the government recognizes same-sex (or polygamous) marriages, which taints the entire institution in the eyes of the couple. Are they married in the eyes of our Church? What if the religious ceremony was Wiccan? Would we make them go through another religious ceremony even before they were eligible to go through the temple. Or would we make them go through the civil ceremony? This is where the worms get out of the can.

What we now need to do is ensure that marital and common-law relationships are treated equally.

This means equal division of assets upon breakup; the spousal abuse rules upheld in gay, as well as heterosexual relationships; any 2 co-habitating individuals for 2 years or more, automatically inherit the estate of the other roommate, regardless of intention; as well as child and spousal support laws.

With these and other laws strictly administered for gays and heterosexual relationships, common-law, civil or religious ceremony, and publicly announced time and again, so that there is no ignorance, we will soon return to committed, long-term relationships that are the backbone of our society.

Then it won’t matter who is in charge of recognizing marriages versus civil unions.

You hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t remember the name of the Act and only addressed it in oblique terms.

Those who are opposed to same-sex marriage(and I was one of them)now have to adjust to political reality in Canada.

However, I believe that equal enforcement of the law for both gays and heterosexuals will take the bloom off the rose for those disposed to only wanting equal rights without equal responsibility.

Gov’t’s do, and should have, the responsibility to be in the marriage game. Otherwise, there is no accountability, other than moral accountability, since no other body has the right to establish and enforce law.