After a discussion with a colleague around an assignment on marriage equality in my Human Sexuality class, I've come to realize that not everyone recognizes the important difference between a wedding and legal marriage. So I wrote this up for my class:
A wedding is a religious ceremony and celebration. Marriage, on the other hand, is a legal contract recognized by the government.
Gay couples have been able to have weddings in certain faith communities for a several decades (shout out to UU's!!). Vermont was the first state to recognize civil unions, and Massachusetts was the first state to recognize marriage between two people of the same sex (this info is based off of my memory of living through the years, so I may be wrong...).
If it helps you to recognize the difference between weddings and marriage, think about the positions of U.S. slaves. They could not get legally married because they were not considered legal people in their own right. However, couples often held a ceremony or ritual with their family and community to demonstrate their love and commitment (Google "jumping the broom" FMI). Obviously, the slave owners and the government didn't recognize this ceremony in any way. The slave owner could still sell one of the committed partners and not the other, or sell both to different people.
I hope that helps. I didn't realize that people who aren't associated with some of these minorities didn't see the difference between legal marriage and a wedding.
