The overt religious pieces are picked out, but a lot of the elements of the traditional Christian ceremony often hang around. This website, for instance, offers advice on modifying the traditional script, which is full of religious symbolism in its complete form. Not everyone goes for that, but "traditional-style gay weddings" are absolutely a thing.
Heh, they are, but marriage
ceremonies and
marriage are two different things. The legal process really has very little to do with the former -- it requires some signed papers and similar scutwork, and that's really about it.
M'actually fairly okay with complaining about or being discomforted by the traditional ceremonies being appropriated, though it always seems a little silly considering the variations surrounding the process. Monolithic as the abrahamic churches like to think they are, they're kinda' not the only shows in town. Unfortunately marriage itself doesn't have terribly much to do with that, for all that the churches have been doing their damnedest to appropriate the term for themselves.
... thinking on it a little more, I guess you could make an argument about there being parallel between the one-in-the-eyes-of-god and one-in-the-eyes-of-
taxesthe state, but if you go that far you'd be fighting against anything that even
looks like marriage, regardless of what it's called or what tradition it originated from. And as I've since been ninja'd, the concept predates most of the religions against inclusive marriage laws rather substantially.
How so?
Not just little to no resistance to marriage being suborned as a secular concept, but active and regular attempts to directly couple the two. Easily the greatest, most fervent, and most regular proponents for bringing the court into the church has been the religious side of things. Boils down to 'em wanting to be catered to by the legal system, and damn whoever gets shafted by it (which is significantly more people than homosexual couples, by the by).
It would have been fairly easy for the religious groups to say, "No. Use a different term." to the legal trappings, and refuse association (which might not have stopped the cultural (re)appropriation, but at least it would have mostly stopped the silly shit we're dealing with nowadays). But they didn't, and have since largely and vigorously insisted against any other course of action, even rallying against equal institutions by a different name -- see the nature of civil unions in the US, just as an example. The secular world has co-opted the term marriage to a fair extent because the religious one has pretty consistently refused to accept or offer other options.
It wasn't a clinical "civil union" for tax purposes, it was a recognition that they are two humans in love, hopefully for the rest of their lives. There's a word for that, is what I'm saying.
T'be honest, that's half the reason I'd like to see marriage ditched as a legal term. It's supposed to be about union and lasting love, or at least publicly declared relations, not taxation and hospital visits and whatnot. Let marriage be decided by the married, not the county clerk's office. And don't let the latter claim
any dominion over it. Keep them clinical and right the hell away from your relationship dynamics.
