This student note advances a commonly held, but erroneous argument that marriage is an intrinsically religious institution, and thus civil laws regulating it are unconstitutional. While well-intentioned, the position ignores the historical development of marriage in Western Civilization, in which Christianity came late to having any specific interest in it. The church wedding was elevated to the status of a sacrament only in the fifteenth century, and the presence of a priest required for a valid and binding marriage not until 1563 (see Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England 1500-1800 (1979)). The secular interests in marriage have always been the more fundamental. So while this author argues that the state should cease to regulate marriage and leave these to religion, and instead offer civil unions, in fact it is as validly argued that the proper solution is the reverse.