Opposition to the Respect for Marriage Act is firmly grounded in opposition to same-sex marriage — and that itself is grounded in Christian nationalists' insistence that marriage is a religious act, particularly a Christian one.

That comes as a surprise perhaps to Americans of different faiths and no faith who marry one another every day, but conservative Christians insist on it.

There's no reasoning with them. There's no explaining that marriage existed from millennia before Christianity existed, and was rarely if ever considered a religious rite. There's no explaining that marriage has been an important custom in cultures all over the world where Christianity was never even an idea.

(People get married in Thailand, which never fell under European colonization or domination — where Christianity never existed and still does not exist in any significant way. Thais are Buddhist and don't believe in a God remotely like what Christians believe in.)

U.S. Christians rarely preach against interracial marriage anymore, but they sure do preach against same-sex marriage. And such is the toxicity of white nationalist christianity, that they'll choose not to defend interracial marriage if that's what it takes to destroy same-sex marriage.

It's not like interracial marriage is something they're particularly anxious to defend anyway. Loving v Virginia was only decided a few decades ago, and before that many Christians were perfectly content to legally ban interracial marriage on religious grounds.

Long and short?

It's imperative that we move past this Christian impulse that their religion gets to control people who are not Christians. That's obnoxious.

Yesterday in Prism & Pen, Esther Jones rebutted an article in a Christian publication by a man insisting that Christianity gets to define marriage.

Jaw-dropping arrogance. But way too many Americans believe that's true, with stunning racist and homophobic implications.