Prop 8 Crazytown discussion

Inspired by the debate on The Colonialist, here is my opinion:

The government should not be the one to decide who can and cannot marry. Marriage is inherently a religious/spiritual institution and has no place in our political system. The government can and should allow "civil unions" (or as I would like to call them "government contracts"), which give rights and responsibilities to couples (i.e. hospital visits, tax breaks, division of property in case of a contract breach). These contracts should be available to same sex and opposite sex couples and carry no moral value. Marriage would be determined by the individual and their place of worship. The two institutions (marriage and legal contract) should not be conflated into one because we will never agree on moral/spiritual grounds. However, when one removes the religious aspect, I think we can all agree (or at least are more likely to agree) on legal grounds. If two people decide to share their property and rights, then there needs to be a government contract there to protect those two people and their rights. If two people decide to make a spiritual commitment to each other in the context of their religion, that is their own decision and their spiritual leader can oversee that agreement.
Hopefully, this makes sense. It is often difficult for us to separate out ideas that have for so long been collapsed into a single term, but I think it is necessary to make the distinction. So, while it may seem like semantics to distinguish between marriage and civil unions, I think the distinction is the difference between a religious union and a government contract. Rather than arguing whether or not same-sex couples should have the right to marry, we should be arguing that the government has no right to say whether or not anyone has the right to marry. Everyone (same sex or opposite sex couples) should have the right to a civil union under the law and can decide on their own whether or not they also want a spiritual union to be overseen by a religious institution.
Make sense? Questions? Comments?