There is the theory that they are a money laundering business

But for churches it's a justified privilege, they have a lot of expenses after all

The bribes and legal expenses to defend pedophiles in court don't pay themselves

The fight for gay marriage was/is about the benefits afforded by the state to legally married couples.

Which is absolutely privilege because single people don't get those same tax breaks.

Depending on your situation, being married could actually mean you pay more in taxes.
- My wife and I pay more taxes because we are married without children. If we were not married and filed as singles, our tax burden would be much less. But IDK really, mostly because I enjoy living in a working society and that means paying taxes.
All tax benefits, from marriage tax deductions to corporate tax elimination, is the government picking and choosing which behaviors it wants to encourage.

That's why conservatives didn't want gay people to get married because they saw it as government endorsement of their behavior, and not the government recognizing equal rights.
- Public equality and public liberty are the responsibility and purview of government. If they are not, we can't really have government by consent. Instead we have hegemony in which the lower strata are governed by force.
Well in my country there are tax privileges for married couples. The goal of those privileges is to increase the amount of children in the country.

Same sex marriages are now officially recognised by the state, but do not get any tax privileges.
- That still sounds like discrimination to me. Same sex couples still have the ability to adopt, use IVF with a donor, use a surrogate, etc. All of these encourage raising children, but they're ineligible for benefits because they aren't a hetero couple?
- You see, I'm on board with that logic right up until there are childless hetero couples. I think if a gay couple plans to adopt they should get the exact same privileges.

In the aughts George W. Bush signed an executive order instructing the IRS not to enforce the restrictions on churches regarding political speech non-profits are not supposed to endorse parties or specific candidates, though they can talk about issues).

After that dozens of right-wing political action committees and activism organizations redefined themselves as churches, what are now called parachurch organizations that are tax-free and political.

So yes, it is already a laundering business taking advantage of Christian nationalist leadership who believes in loyalty over principle.

they call it privilege because "straight people aren't legally protected" which is fundamentally not true in the context of marriage, because that's what it's for.

In most other cases it's reactionary, not precautionary. If straight rights were being oppressed, then sure you could fucking protect them all you want. They're not though.