“there certainly are many gedolim who hold a state marriage license is meaningless as far as Judaism is concerned”
Rav Henkin z’tz’l and Rav Soloveitchik z’tz’l disagreed.
“did not yet receive a legal divorce decree from the state courts, and one of the halachicly divorced spouses remarries in a Jewish marriage ceremony prior to receiving a state divorce”
The couple could be prosecuted for bigamy. I know someone this almost happened to in such a jurisdiction.
“The purely religious marriage is not merely “legal” in that it is not criminal”
In New York it actually IS a criminal act by the mesader kidushin, as I pointed out in an earlier post.