Church, State, and Gay Marriage

Yes, we're talking about this again, and but this is a serious issue. It now concerns the Church of England. The British government wants to be able to allow gay marriage by 2015, but the Church is putting the breaks on this idea. They say that it will alter the very meaning of marriage. Again with the "meaning of marriage" argument. It doesn't matter. If two people love each other, they deserve the right to get married. England already recognizes civil partnerships and gives gay couples the same legal rights as a married couple, but they're not allowed to call them "marriages". The Church has said that to perform a same-sex marriage would be to undermine its role as the state church. You know what's funny? I always thought the Church of England was a more progressive church. They're so worried about "violating" the sanctity of marriage, but they seem to forget that they became a church in the first place because Henry VIII wanted to divorce his first wife. Wasn't divorce in the 1500s a huge middle finger to the sanctity of marriage? I honestly am surprised that gay marriage is such a huge issue, especially when many of England's most famous people are/were gay (Oscar Wilde, [potentially] Shakespeare, Mark Gatiss, Stephen Fry, Phyllida Lloyd [director of "Mamma Mia!"]). I should have thought that homosexuality would ot be such a huge issue there, but apparently, I was, to my despair, wrong. Full story here.