If we consider what the word meant up until about 50 years ago, then yes. If we consider the new definition, of "you signed a piece of paper given to you by the government, and gave it back to the government". Then, sure, you are married.

I'm not trying to insult you or denigrate you, but again, if we use the word marriage for all relations between two human beings, then we gain nothing, we just lose a word.

Do you hold the same position for marriages in other traditions - for example, Shintoism, indigenous belief systems, Hinduism, paganism, etc? Many such religions don't have the same concept of a marriage as a covenant with God, yet have existed for quite some time.

And we don't need to use the word marriage for all of them.

> The legal recognization by a church or government is one version, but not the key ingredient.

The covenant with god has been a key ingredient for centuries.

But that's the only word we have for "lifetime-committed couple recognized by some authority". The meanings of words change and evolve. Tough luck.

We could use the secular "civil union" for all marriages performed outside of a church. But that would be unnecessarily clunky and pointless ("I got civil union-ed this weekend, it was great!"). And then of course people married under other religious traditions would object to the use of the word "civil" so you'd have to qualify every other union accordingly - "Jewish union", "Muslim union", "Hindu union", etc. Why?

You're basically arguing against free speech. I don't understand who it's helping. If the distinction is that important to you, just spell it out when talking about your marriage ("I was married in a church"). Leave everyone else alone.

Actions have a value which are seven thousand times more worth than words, so the covenant with God is automatic in that situation even if the people are ignorant and have never heard of God.

Yes. That's the kind of attitude that can build toward peace & harmony, and to live & let live instead of the hate against nonuniformity often shown by the religious extremists. Whether they are Christian or anything else. Hate is hate.

When an unmarried couple is completely faithful to each other until death, regardless of any other family, there's no way the average religious marriage can compare in that regard.

Not even close, zero is still a very small number.

Statistics are pretty accurate here. With the rate of divorce and unfaithfulness so rampant in religious marriage, it's only become more of a gamble over decades and decades of direct observation and interacton.

IIRC some cultures have shunned the idea of gambling since prehistoric times.

Others have it inscribed in scriptures almost as old, but not universally adhered to by the "faithful" just yet.

And it's been a while . . .

In some cultures yes, but pair-bonding is a lot older than the idea of god

How strong is your commitment to this? If it's unflagging I think a lot of people can understand your disappointment then.

If you are well-acquainted enough with the USA, you are certainly aware that these have been one and the same for like . . . centuries now here.

Not just 50 years, what have you been doing about that the whole time?

Have you had any successful efforts to completely separate church & state yet, and have you even had 50 years to work on that so far?

It would be good to see a concrete sign that your advocacy is sincere.

If there's nothing so far, that is understandable, but most of us do not have 90 full years to figure this out, so no time like the present to get started.

That's only the wimps that have nothing worthwhile to add.