To MGibspon
PS: Nice attempt at a dodge by throwing things in a debate that I didn’t bring up.
I’m speaking as an Orthodox Christian. We’re so doctrinally conservative that we might consider Southern Baptists to be wild innovators who just flow with the latest social fad.
My own opinion is that the root of the problem is that, as has been stated above, there are two things called “marriage”. There is a legal contractual relationship, sanctioned by the state. My own Church considers these to be irrelevant.
Then there is the (at least in my own Church) Sacramental state of marriage. Orthodoxy simply does not recognize “civil” marriages. They are non-events so far as the Church is concerned. If the state requires some kind of civil licensing, then the Church will (usually) comply, but the presence or absences of state recognition is ultimately irrelevant. The state could permit the marriage of people and houseplants, and the Orthodox Church’s stance would not change a bit. Whether or not a government “permits” the state of “gay marriage” doesn’t mean that the Church recognizes it. The Church doesn’t have to.
Dogface has a good point.
Thing is, the State recognizes a series of legally enforceable rights and entitlements to people involved in the civil contract of marriage. AND it has recognized the religious sacrament of matrimony as A WAY to enter that contract. But that does not mean the State-sanctioned civil marriage emanates from “holy matrimony”. Civil marriage existed in pre-Christian times and in non-Christian societies.
As he so very clearly says, the churches do not have to align themselves with the State in the carrying out of the Sacrament of Matrimony; conversely and under the same principle, the State does not have to align itself with sacramental matrimony when deciding what civil marriages are valid. But since to a large proportion of the public the two are inextricably linked, it becomes a monster issue when the definitions of one and the other start to diverge.
I don’t understand why you’re being so snarky, did someone pee in your Cheerios these past few days? I never stated that I wanted to keep marriage open for a few and deny it to others. That’s something that you have imagined all by yourself. If you’re going to be petulant then at least be petulant for the right reasons.
Marc
Just so.
As a resident of Vermont, I have been turning this question over in my mind since the civil union debates a couple of years ago, and came to the conclusion that the state should get out of the marriage business and leave it to the churches.
I assume there would be some sort of “domestic partnership” arrangement. Once you and your intended sign the partnership application, you are “married” as far as the state is concerned, with inheritance rights, community property, etc. Whether you have a religeous ceremony is up to you and your church.
Presumably, some churches would require a domestic partnership agreement before they would marry you, and some would not. Some might even prefer that there not be (to insure the purity of your motives, or some such reasoning).
Thus, there are four possibilities:
You shack up with no ceremony and no domestic partnership. This is identical to cohabitation today (although under this paradigm I would disallow all palimony claims). Whether your mother approves is your problem.
You get married by a church but have no domestic partnership. Your mother would approve, but she might be concerned about your future security, as you have no legal rights.
You have a domestic partnership, but no religious ceremony. You have full legal rights, but your mother thinks you are living in sin.
You have both a domestic partnership and a religious ceremony. You are as married as anyone is today. Your mother can quit worrying, as you have full legal rights and you are OK by the church.
By getting the government out of the marriage business, we avoid the whole problem of putting a government endorsement of same-sex unions, because the government wouldn’t endorse any unions.
I think this could work.
What would happen if two people wanted to get married, but didn’t get a marriage license? Could they be subject to fines/imprisonment? Or would the state simply not recognize their marriage?
Lord Ashtar, I recall from some background searching I did on this issue last week that eleven states still recognize “common law” marriages. Most of those states are located in the Bible Belt, if my geography still holds up.
I’m certain that somewhere along the line a same-sex couple has applied for recognition as a common-law couple, been denied that recognition, contested it in court, and most likely lost because right now most states define marriage as a union of one man and one woman.
As far as abolishing state certified marriages, I am reminded of a hole in the ground on the outskirts of my one-time home Christiansburg, Virginia. It had been a public swimming pool in the 1960s. Rather than open it to all residents regardless of race, the town elected to close it instead. The pool is still there, and it’s “integrated.” But it’s also not a very appealing place to spend a summer day, know what I mean?
In Indiana, there is no legally-mandated penalty for having no marriage license. Likewise, there is no legal requirement for a marriage license to have a religious marriage rite performed. However, in Indiana one can be refused insurance coverage as a “spouse” if one is not “legally married”, which is where the license can come into play. In my own case, the ceremony acceptable to my Church and the civil event were separated by several hours and took place in two different locales. The civil event was nothing more than signing the license in the presence of someone authorized by the state to record such things and having it witnessed–merely a legal formality.
In Ontario, as far as I know, all two-person* Church**-sanctioned marriages are recognised by the State (well, Province, actually). Individual religious organizations are free to choose which marriages they will support. There are also “civil marriages” which take place without Church involvement (My sister got married at City Hall, for example). All of these marriages are equivalent as far as benefits, etc, go.
[sub]*I don’t actually know whether there are any religious organizations fighting for marriages of more than two persons. But it wouldn’t surprise me. It would open up a huge can of worms though WRT legal contracts and responsibilities… but there are other threads devoted to that subject.
**Church, Temple, Circle, etc… any officially-recognised religious organization. And I have no idea how one gets one’s church Oficially Recognised.[/sub]
Um, that’s commonly known as “shacking up”, and it’s perfectly legal. The last theoretical possibility of arrest went out last week when the Court threw out heterosexual sodomy laws.
The couple involved will have trouble, however, if they try to fill out a joint tax return, or claim Social Security survivor benefits, or do any other of the “legal marriage” things discussed in this thread . . . unless their state recognizes “common law” marriages.
There was a thread that I was a poster on called"Baffled By Frist", that I wished some of the level headed thinkers here would have attended. I took similar stances of a lot of the previous posters here, and got shouted down each time for semantic reasons.