Marriage laws allow for the understanding of the married couple as full adults in our culture. Benefits Couples married by a state government are automatically granted a broad range of rights at the federal level. These rights affect federal employees such as civil servants and the military. For the purposes of nearly all of the above items, same-sex couples are considered legal strangers, and thereby unable to be covered by them. Ceremonial marriage may be officiated by church officials, or anyone you choose.
Many churches marry same-sex couples.
Church officials are vested to oversee signing of legal marriage documents, but they have no control over their legal content. Ceremonial marriages in and of themselves involve no civil laws and carry no legal benefits or responsibilities. Common law marriage is only available in certain states and does not apply to same-sex couples. It allows for some marriage law to apply to opposite -sex couples who have lived together a certain length of time. Some states, without common law marriage, do not recognize other states' common law marriages.