If you are like most modern people (and maybe across many generations of man) and watch the modern news on the lookout for bad omens or confirmation of your biases that the world would be better off if it only shared your exact stackup of sensibilities, there are certain things you almost certainly have an opinion on.  One of those centers around the meanings we have around the english word marriage.  It occurs to me a lot of the controversy around this, like a lot of things, comes down to a language debate, not an ethical one.  Framed as a simple language debate though makes light of an issue that the devil has found a great tool to aid his evil plans for our countries and cultures.

What occurs to me is that we don't really have enough words for it.  We all try to use the same word for multiple very different things.   Apocalyptic leaning religious people are presented incontrovertable seeming bad omens such as rising divorce rates which I remember hearing in Portugal are as high as 50% in one random measure.  We also hear how rigid churches guard their definition of marriage and chose to hear it as evidence of how "behind the times" they are.  Of course, to religious people being "behind the times" is not an insult but actually very good news in how they chose to relate to the world.  This angers the insulter even more and positions and people further diverge from one another.

One of things I think is good to notice the distinction of is civil marriages vs. spiritual ones.  Our states and governments have to use a much looser definition of marriage in the application of state benefits, laws, and responsibilities.  Ideally, this is perfectly in union Christianity in Christian-founded governments, but this is not always possible as governments are inevitably beholdant and corruptible by  man and not God, despite founding father's intentions.

Over time with a government's drift away from God, civil marriages end up being made compatible with just about any religion.  Of course this is framed as a necessary and merciful "compromise" with the taxpayer base.   Pacification in this way has a convenient result of keeping everyone happy that wants to be kept happy  which is good for tax revenue and subjugation against God that State authority is the one true and final authority.  This doesn't work on Christians though and is actually very offensive.

What I'd propose is to let the State do what the State wants, but give the problem for God to handle.  Jesus' people, with good church leadership, will not be fooled and will continue to vote while they are allowed to in democratic governments.  Know, that the devil will attempt to water down any Godly-inspired culture with both population numbers from cultures with incompatible spiritualities and any number of tricks that inevitably are much smarter than any of us to notice, but have faith.  We are all destined to live in trying times, and that includes our governments.  While the state chooses to accept marriages even blessed by Elvis, find peace in that as an obvious example of what I say above.

The marriage word that Jesus uses in the Bible to speak His commandments is not the same one that the state uses.  It's probably most translateable with what has been stewarded from Jesus' time in the Catholic or Greek Orthodox churches.  The sacraments and definitions are timeless and do not change, by Jesus order, but language drifts.  They are immutable and will likely have larger and stricter qualifications that even the most discerning churches (run by humans) will find difficult to communicate or enforce.  I am skeptical it can even be applied to people who do not walk in faith with Jesus.  I think culture, with the help of some states, attempts to muddy that by attempting to confuse you that civil marriage is the same as (e.g) Catholic marriage.  This is unfortunate, but we Christians know better.  We don't need to play the same language games as the devil, but am thankful to those compelled to do so as I'm certain its part of His plan for you.  The rest of us will just lie in waiting, voting or not voting, trusting His voice will reach us when its necessary to His plan.