Reply #51: Well your understanding is sort of backward [View All]

[Bluenorthwest]

Religions are free to marry anybody they want, right now, today. No legal standing is conferred by a religious wedding ceremony. None, right now today. No religion is now or would ever be 'forced' to view anybody as anything. No religion has any power legally to bind or unbind, the state alone contains that power. No religion is forced to do anything against its doctrain, no matter the law. Note that divorce is not accepted in many denominations, but those denominations can not in anyway prevent thier members from divorcing, those denominations can and do refuse to remarry divorced people, and yet these denominations can not prevent their members from becoming remarried, as the marriage contract is empowered by the state, and the Chruch has zero to do with it.
Why this focus on the hysterical fear that religions will be 'forced' to do anything, I don't know. State divorce laws sure don't fit into Mr Ratzinger's idea of right and wrong, and that does not seem to stop us from issuing 'no questions instant' divorce, to anyone who asks, without, by the way, any mention of or questions regarding religion or chruch affiliation.
Many of us think followers of Ratzinger and such are simply insane bigots. But they will not be forced to do anything, just as they are not now.