I agree that the ability to solemnize civil marriages is a red herring issue.
The important thing is control of religious ceremonies and the right to live in
accord with one's own conscience. The clergy's power to create a legal
relationship is necessarily a power delegated from the state;
Some possibly disjointed thoughts from my minister/chaplain/lawyer brain . .
.
Several in this discussion have used the phrase withdraw the power to
solemnize civil marriages from churches or similar language. I think a
more accurate-even if cumbersome-phrase might be the power to perform
