Thinking about "Marriage"

Just throwing this out there because it seems to be the topic of the hour/day/week/month, and I am sure my view will offend someone. I really never intended to express my opinion on this, but really I feel compelled to at this point in time.

I believe in traditional marriage, one man and one woman, until death, from a religious standpoint.  

God ordained religious marriage as such, see Genesis 1-3 and Matthew 19 when Jesus references back to that in speaking of Marriage.  I know several other places in the Old Law (Leviticus and Deuteronomy) say some other varying things about Marriage, but Jesus told us himself that he came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, by which, those are no longer rules we are supposed to follow.  We are now to follow Jesus's Commandments, which sum up the whole Law and the Prophets, Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself.  Now this requires a proper understanding of love and persons (I suggest reading Love and Responsibility, or the Theology of the Body, or something by Christopher West to get what I mean, I am not expounding on that now).

However, as a woman who has been married in the Catholic Church and subsequently gone through a divorce (which is only civil), and the annulment process in the Church, I can say that while there was one ceremony that made both the religious and civil bond of marriage, the two were very different.  The civil dimension of my marriage was easily dissolved, just a few signatures on a paper and it's done.  The process of getting my Declaration of Nullity was entirely different.  This is how I realize the difference between these two kinds of marriage.

Having said that, my views on marriage are as follows: as far as a civil marriage is concerned, I don't really care who marries who, as long as it is two human beings be it a man and woman, man and man, or woman and woman.  We live in a country were we each have certain rights and speaking from a civil aspect they should be the same for all people regardless of sexual orientations, race, or creed.  Because we stand up for religious freedom in this country, sometimes that requires us to stand up and support other people's right to believe something to which we are apposed. 

We need to remember we are called to love the sinner and hate the sin, we do not live in a Christian Theocracy.  The first amendment does not only protect religious freedom for those with a Jude-Christian belief system, but all religions, including the right not to have one. That being said, I do not believe religious institutions who oppose same sex unions should be forced to perform ceremonies to bring them about.

The way I see it, especially as a Catholic, religious marriage and civil marriage are two different entities.