The same or similar is true for many other countries as well. I did some research into this when we decided to get married "abroad." We ended up getting married in Portugal, where I was born.

In Portugal there is one religious ceremony that is recognized by the state, a Catholic one. Any other religious process, or for that matter a lack of one, requires a civil ceremony for legal recognition, usually at the local office of the Civil Registry for the region.

We were lucky enough to have the civil registrar come out to marry us on the beach in April, something the Catholic Church would never consider anyway. The ceremony had no mention at all of anything religious in it, so we were actually quite free to style it ourselves beyond the paperwork procedure required by the state. In fact because Portugal's changes in procedure, you don't even have to sign anything as part of the ceremony - the signatures were already taken at the time of the application for the process here at home at the consulate a month before.

Prop 8 should be thrown out on the sole basis that it was tainted by parties outside of the state.