Have you ever heard anyone ever give a single 'coherent' reason to be against marriage equality?

[malthaussen]

19. Not bad. But you ignore the Common Law.

Under common law, a heterosexual couple may be deemed married without any ceremony or legal footwork, by virtue of a certain length's time of cohabitation. Which is, admittedly, elliptical to your point, but you do have to take it into account when you propose to define marriage as "a joint status agreed on by both the law and organized religion."

I think your basic point is well-taken, and ignored by those who espouse "marriage equality" as only a civil concern -- or as the OP puts it, a question of rights, not rites. So far as my limited acquaintence with the subject tells me, formal marriage is a rather complex issue that always, regardless of provenance, is bound up with religious beliefs. To ignore that is to close one's eyes to reality. I speak here of the institution, of course, and not of how certain couples/groups express the institution.

That being said, insofar as marriage is a civil right, it is a travesty that anyone should be prohibited it.

-- Mal