The Frau was telling me how they handle marriage in Germany, and I think their system would work well here in the US.
Everyone gets married in a non-religious civil ceremony before a government official. This establishes the legal state of marriage. Then, the couple can go to their church for the religious ceremony of marriage. This establishes the religious/spiritual state of marriage.
Churches are free to establish their own rules and exclude anyone they wish. Also, no one is forced to have a religious ceremony.
The problem we have in the US is that for too long there has been an intermixing the process of legal state of marriage and the religious/spiritual state of marriage.
Let's separate them. Hey separation of church and state. I like how that sounds.
The government gets to make the rules concerning the legal state of marriage and the churches get to make the rules concerning the religious/spiritual state of marriage. A win-win situation.
If a church disagrees with the legal state of marriage, they don't have recognize it in their religious state of marriage.