@InsaneMystic
I was not going to write more but you specificly asked for an answer. So be it...
Freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Noone but religions alone should have the authority to choose what terms they use. The state must not ever meddle there.
The state can easily give the term up, with freedom being left intact. Making religions give the term up is dictatorial oppression, basically equalling theocracy.
You have made your point clear as water: Give religions what ever territory they want, others should retreat and be happy with what is left after that. Everyone has to bow the Mighty Religion!
Now I have the freedom of religion to marry a person without anyone forcing me to mix religion into it. You are trying to reduce my freedom by forcing some "religious connotation" to every ones marriages by trying to make religion a part of the words literal meaning.
One dictionary explains connotation as:
"an idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning."
I simply don't understand your reasoning, Argo.
Argo? Do you mean me or do we have a member namer Argo? OK, Insane, I quess it's me.
Well, you will never understand the reasoning if you don't learn what is the difference between "a hard fact" and "an opinion".
I'm campaigning to strengthen freedom of religion, not to reduce it. I'm aiming to expand secularity, not put it on the fringe of society. It appears to me that you simply do not understand either of these concepts.
Well, they say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
There is a lot of things in this world I do not understand but I still would recommend you to check your aim-point. As I said earlier, you are just working towards "more territory to the religion". If secularity is giving religion everything it wants including the power to deny non-believers rights, as you demand, then I admit I do not understand the concept.
About fact and opinion:
And yes, the word marriage does have very obvious religious connotations,
I agree, this is a fact, if you ad the word "sometimes" after the word "does". If you do not ad the word there someone might think there is the word "always".
But:
which will be present in every use of the word. That is not open to opinion, it is a fact.
This is a mere opinion.
Your pit-hole seems to be that because your "religious feelings" (or whatever you want to call them) dictate there being always a religious connotation for you, you feel that it is the same for everyone, everywhere, every time, and every case. But this is just your opinion, not a fact. Not even if there has been the Holy Sacrament of Marriage in the Catholic Church since the 16th century (Well, they claim it to be from the first century but...). The civil marriage without any religious connection does exist.
I think your opinion contradicts quite many anthropologists and linguistics opinions too. You are free to take this as an opinion, not a fact, I do not have the energy to search the proof.
Some people trying to blindly and arbitrarily ignore these connotations does not magically make them disappear.
Someone trying to blindly and arbitrarily ignore the lack of that said connotation in some other contexts does not magically put it to be there.
You see? Opinion against opinion. No hard facts anywhere. The scenery might change when some linguistic or anthropologist begins to study it. The marriage is not only theology, as you insist it to be.
You, yourself keep admitting that these connotations are there, in one sentence, then willfully pretend they're not in the next. That is the opposite of logical, consistent argumentation.
Well, do you know what mean words like: "always, sometimes, every time, can be, in some contexts, never, (and so on...)"? Sometimes they are the key words to understanding.
And of course, you still failed to answer my question: Would you, personally, have a problem with the words "heretic, do you confess to your sins?" used by a judge in a secular courtroom, in a purely non-religious context? And if so, what is your logic in your complaint against their use?
I do have a problem with your artificial redefinitions of words here. Exactly the same problem that I have with your redefining of the word "marriage".
Well, a small detour: Heresy is mainly a state of mind, not necessarily doing anything. Yes, I would have a complaint if anyone would be even sued of a mere mindset without any crimes done.
I think you just made a sin here. (Sin as not hitting the Gold, the centre of the target, with your arrow.) If you insist to think so, you are free to think you also made a sin against some god (maybe the God of Logic?), it is totally up to you. Just as it earlier came up the "marry the spices" has the divine connotation only in your mid, or does it? It is after all "marriage" (the same word), isn't it?
The changing of the name of "the bond" from marriage to civil union does not change "the bond" from being a marriage, that is "the holy matrimony" for some ones and "a civil marriage" for others.
Insane, I see no meaning to continue this debate with you, it would be insane. Everything you say to be a fact seems to be based on your above mentioned "religious bridge" over the logical pit-hole of yours.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinions and religious feelings.
But:
If you say: "To me marriage is always a religious bond", so be it.
If you say: "It is a fact that marriage is always and everywhere a religious bond (and it is foolish to say anything else)", you make a logical mistake (and are not so polite).
I hope you do have the guts to stop for a while and think this over. If not, I do hope that you do not have any political or legislative power where ever you do live.
Well, when everything has been said there has usually been said too much....