Gay marriage framed as an issue of religious freedom rather than civil rights

Is gay marriage an issue of semantics?

Right now religions in many states couldn’t perform the marriage of a gay couple without being in violation of state laws. That’s just a fact and nothing more. What if gay marriage became a religious freedom issue rather than a civil rights issue? What if government got out of the business of issuing marriage licenses and instead issued civil unions to any two consenting adults? People would work through a religion in order to get married. Marriage would then become an issue that was dictated by religion and not government.

How would it be different than some religions making women priests or having celibate clergy? There are other religions that disagree with these practices, but the government is not involved and religious freedom is protected. The sanctity of marriage is to be upheld by religion (however a religion decides to define it) and religious freedom is to be upheld by the government.

I imagine there are people on both sides of this issue that would disagree with an idea like this, but you would also find people on both sides of this issue that would agree. People who support traditional marriage would be happy because the government would stay out of defining marriage. And people who support gay marriage would just simply have to find a religion that would marry them. In the eyes of the government it wouldn’t matter what two people take claim to the benefits being in a civil union/domestic partnership.

There could be other people who could benefit from this as well, not just gay people or people who want to protect marriage. Some people have no desire to get married but would like to take advantage of what the government offers to those who are. For example an adult daughter who lives with and takes care of her mother or two widows who would like companionship. I can’t see why two consenting adults cannot receive and share certain benefits that are currently reserved, according to the government, for married couples.

Gay marriage supporters might think that it’s the traditional marriage supporters stepping on their toes and traditional marriage supporters might think the same thing about gay marriage supporters,but in some ways, it’s the government that is stepping on the toes of both.