I only stated my opinion:
I know. I'm not dumping on you as if you were stating a fact.
My reasoning is firstly, that marriage was originally and is still in many cases a religous institution,
That would be extremely difficult to establish, since marriage has been used in every culture since before written history.
which would seem to get into the whole seperation of church and state issue.
If the government were to force churches to perform marriages against their tenets, this would be true. However, as it would be courthouses that perform marriages, not churches, the separation of church and state is not threatened.
And, secondly, that removing government from marriage would eliminate much of the argument over it.
Conversely, so would allowing gay marriage.
No laws regarding it would mean no political debate.
Well, yes. Removing government, and therefore politics, would indeed remove political debate. However, you would only see the issue picked up just as strongly, if not more so, by theological debate.
Let the various religions decide internally if they want to allow gay marriage. It's a religious question anyway.
See, I'm just not aware of any pro gay marriage position that states that various religions must accept gay marriage within their own churches.
Or should be, and would be, if the financial element (tax reductions for a married couple?) were not involved.
Much has been made of the financial aspect of marriage, but it's more than that. Marriage is a symbol throughout civilization of the ultimate bond between two people . Everything else, such as "civil unions," are watered down concepts which is why a lot of gay people aren't settling for it. And frankly, if marriage were only a religious institution, no atheists would be getting married. Of course, you might say that atheists in this regard are misguided, but that would be highly presumptuous.
Personally, I think government involvement should be in the form of a legal agreement only, not a legal agreement with religious overtones.
I am not personally familiar with courthouses performing marriages with religious overtones, unless you're interpreting the marriage itself as connoting the religious overtone.
But, that is just me ranting.
No prob.
Regarding your question as to what I think the odds are of this happening?
Very little.
The world is always changing. Sometimes these changes make me uncomfortable, sometimes not. In the end all I can do to deal with it is determine how concretely or abstractly they effect me. If they affect me personally (and perhaps negatively), I decide if I need to adapt or fight back. If abstractly, I adjust my outlook and roll with it. Not only will governments continue to perform marriages, but gay marriage, nationally, is inevitable. People who were against gay marriage will need to adjust their outlook so that they don't feel their own marriages somehow mean less. I'm not trying to sound condescending, it's just that I genuinely see all this as inevitable.
After all, it's a great topic to get elected with (from either side).
True that.
