First of all, your history is quite off. Second of all, Christians are not trying to have a monopoly on 'marriage' in the sense of pagans, but simply to preserve the meaning that the word has acquired in recent centuries. So what is the urgent need to go back to the neolithic age? Many other words have changed in meaning over the centuries through PEACEFUL evolution, and no one is saying "The Jurassic meaning of this word may be different! We need it changed!" The meaning of words change throughout history either by general consensus when the people start using it for something different, or when dictators or powerful organizations try to change it for their gain. While it is true that the Catholic church was responsible for extending its control over unwilling people, the definition of marriage was not forcibly changed by Christians, but came to refer exclusively to God's union through centuries of use with the absence of pagan marriages. It was not 'stealing' the word, because the word ceased to be used for all other purposes, so no one had a claim on it. Marriage simply means 'bond' anyway, so cannot the state define such unions as unions or bonds? They are synonyms of the original meaning of marriage. Marriage did not come to refer to what it refers to today by taking the word away from other people who used it for another purpose. If you go trying to change the meaning now, you are going to forcibly change the word that has a long established, common usage among several agreeing organizations and 100s of 1000s of people. Why? It is, as I said, like me trying to claim the word Rabbi. The roots of the word Rabbi have a linguistic history longer than the roots of the word marriage, and were used all throughout the Middle East and the Fertile Crescent. It simply means revered one, or lord. Why is it then that they should have a legal monopoly on it? All throughout history you have had non-religious leaders called Rabbi (or some form of the word), and then those totalitarian childeating Jews (half-brothers to the darker and more disturbed Christians) come along and try to claim it! Those evil Jews are trying to take my reveredness away! Oy vey! I will never truely be accepted or treated equally until I and humanity reclaim that word from evil religion!
I don't know what you bad is with religion, or if it is maybe just Christians you hate, but I think you need to put things in perspective a bit.
EDIT: And just wanted to put a note in to any Jews who see my Oy vey comment and get the wrong idea. I am not making fun of Jews. I am part Jewish myself, and my religious views are very much influenced by Judiasm (to the point where I may say that I am 'half-Jew' in a sense). :P I was just trying to play on the irony and be funny.
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