What is marriage? According to Wikipedia: "A marriage is a relationship between or among individuals, usually recognized by civil authority and/or bound by the religious beliefs of the participants. The fact that marriage often has the dual nature of a binding legal contract plus a moral promise can make it difficult to characterize."

It's exactly what's in this last sentence which makes the debate on the introduction of the possibility for same sex couples to get married so difficult, both in the US and other countries. In my opinion it al depends on how secular a state is, both in law and day to day reality. The more secular a state is, the less its laws are influenced by religious morality and the easier it is to press for a modern application of the law.

The same for the law on marriages. In a secular state ideally a marriage with rights from and duties to the state is a civil marriage, where the relationship can only be recognised in the town hall F.e. after calls for full equality for all citizens, whether straight or gay, in the Netherlands no special law was made for same sex couples to get married. It was as simple as getting the reference to man and woman to be scrapped from the marriage law.

Unfortunately there was a catch. Because of international pressure, as far as I know, there was/is no possibility for gays and lesbians to adopt children from outside the Netherlands.

Dutch religious traditionalists (one could call them also fundamentalists) argued that this drive for equality is against what the Bible teaches. That argument was countered: churches are still free to decide whoever they marry. Obviously Roman catholic churches do not wed same sex couples, however after long debates quite a number of the protestant churches followed the civil wedding law and made it possible for same sex couples to have their wedding blessed in the church.

My advice in this debate would be to have a step by step approach. Aim for civil union as a first step. At the same time try and make it clear to the public at large that in a modern western society civil wedding and church wedding are/should be two separate matters. If all citizens in our societies are supposed to be equal for the law then the legislators should also consider making it possible for the gay and lesbian citizens to marry for the law.