Is it time to separate marriage and state?
28 June 2008 by Stardust
I have now been to a secular wedding, and to many religious weddings, and the ending is so similar. The officiants say similar words “by the power vested in me by the state yadda, yadda, yadda, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Even if Gawd isn’t invoked, it still has a religious feel to it. I am wondering now if I was to marry my husband over again, would I even have a ceremony at all? I probably would, only secular next time around.
In his recent post titled Marriage, American Style: Is It Past Time For Church And State To Get A Divorce?AU writer Joseph L Conn proposes that we apply separation of church and state principle to marriage.
Conn quotes Washington correspondent Rob Marus as saying:
“In all of America’s brouhaha over whether legalizing same-sex marriage will sully the institution’s sanctity,” Marus notes, “very few Christians are asking one important question: When – and why – did the government get into the sanctification business?
“When the preacher, at the end of a marriage ceremony, says, ‘By the power vested in me by the state of (fill-in-the-blank), I pronounce you husband and wife,’ is he or she acting as a minister of the gospel or a magistrate of the government – or both? How does that happen in a society with a First Amendment designed to guarantee functional separation between religion and government?”
In answer to that question, Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn argues that the relationship between religion, marriage and government is rooted in history but has become quite problematic today. Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, says he has to apply for a license and become an officer of the court in Virginia to serve as an officiant at marriages there.
Lynn said it probably would be a good idea to separate religious marriages from the civil marriages (or civil unions) recognized by the state.
But then those religious folks are still not happy because it would be taking their sky daddy beliefs out of government. Seems some even would love to force others to abide by their own individual traditions and beliefs.
Anti-gay crusader Maggie Gallagher whines:
“I’m not especially in favor of it,” she told ABP.
“A real alternative would be for government to recognize and enforce religiously distinctive marriage contracts so long as they serve the government’s interest – say, permanent ones for Catholics,”
PERMANENT for Cat-o-licks? Eeeghads! What about other denominations’ beliefs about marriage and divorce? How would government accommodate them all? And what is this “so long as they serve the government’s interest”???
Gallagher continues:
“But what people who talk about ‘separating marriage and state’ really propose to do is simply to refuse to recognize religious marriage contracts at all. This is not neutrality; it is a powerful intervention by the government into the lives of religious people.”
In response to Gallagher’s proposal, Conn writes:
It sounds like Gallagher would make a bad situation worse. Is she really saying that the government should forbid Catholics to get a divorce in keeping with the tenets of her Catholic faith?
That just illustrates why America might want to consider moving in the other direction. Gallagher and her Religious Right cronies want American civil law to reflect religious doctrine. In a nation that respects freedom of conscience, it should not.
The whole issue of marriage wasn’t so complicated until gays stood up and demanded their right to same-sex marriage and the religious folks have a problem with that.
28 June 2008, on 11:49 am
In my capacity as Atheist Minister, when I perform marriages, I go with a different twist on the “power vested” line, for what it’s worth. From my last marriage ceremony:
No one who has the good fortune to share in these events as officiant has any real power to make a bond or create a commitment. There is no “power vested in me” or in anyone else to do anything other than act as a kind of official witness and town crier. The power in virtue of which XX and XY are joined resides in them, their choices, and their promises to each other.
28 June 2008, on 11:56 am
Ron, I like that. I think my recently wed son and daughter-in-law would have liked that too at their secular wedding (though it was a wonderful, godless wedding).
28 June 2008, on 2:20 pm
Ron…
In your capacity as “Atheist Minister”, do you possibly prefer to be addressed as IR-Reverend Ron?
Or perhaps (even more ridiculous)…as in the Catlick Choich…as opposed to “Right Reverend (Monsignor) Ron”…
Wrong Reverend (Totally Non-Monsignor) Ron?
(And, of COURSE, as is my filthy wont…)
Is your Choich called (something akin to the Python’s)…
“St. Looney of the Cram Bunns and Yam”?
…with possibly either Viagra or Ciales baked into the Communion wafer?
Ummm…Distributed Orally?…
or anally?
As a long ago, former Altar Boy…just asking…and wondering!
Seriously…
I agree with Conn’s proposal. I support COMPLETE separation of Church and State in ALL matters; in this case, of course, regarding ANYTHING connected to people’s private (and reproductive) lives…and tangentially…RE things like Women’s “Choice” and the Stem cell issues!
28 June 2008, on 4:29 pm
I’ve been making similar points. If marriage is a religious institution, married couples should get no privileges. If it’s a state institution, it’s a right everyone should have.
28 June 2008, on 6:04 pm
Since the only concrete recognition of a marriage-
not counting the XX and XY actually joined as in
Minister Ron’s eloquent send-off-
is civil…
…and
to end one,
you have to go,
not to the church,
not to the minister for your money back,
but to the secular legal system,
churches have no role in the marriage of two individuals,
beyond as some tacky accessory-
or, maybe, one down
new, borrowed, and blue to go!
For some reason, when I think of an “atheist minister”, I see an unshaven, red-faced cat-hole-lick priest, the white of his dog collar now a mixture of the grey of poor laundering and nicotine yellow, sitting stiffly in a cracked barcalounger alternately roaring filthy curses in Gaelic at four blank walls and swigging from a handled, 1.75l bottle of Canadian Mist.
I think I’d rather see Ron as Captain Ron from that awesome Kurt Russell movie of the same name.
28 June 2008, on 8:29 pm
to end one,
you have to go,
not to the church,
not to the minister for your money back,
but to the secular legal system,
This is exactly the point that I have recently made to a fundie who I was discussing marriage and divorce with. They didn’t have a response.
28 June 2008, on 9:33 pm
RDG:
Oh, come on, Hitchens isn’t that bad.
Given the diversity of the governing body (yeah, it’s getting there), whose sanctification? The Mormon, Mulism, xtian?
The rule for 1 is the rule for all - otherwise it’s favoritism.
29 June 2008, on 3:23 am
Hey, can someone please take my post off that scheduling nonsense? I was poking around in the new setup (pretty nice looking site now), & I set it to ’schedule’ accidentally. Won’t reset to ‘publish’.
29 June 2008, on 9:54 am
KA say…
“Hey, can someone please take my post off that scheduling nonsense? I was poking around in the new setup (pretty nice looking site now), & I set it to ’schedule’ accidentally. Won’t reset to ‘publish’.”
new format say:
We- royal “we”- regret to inform…no, “we” do not regret- but “we” say so to approximate Turing human specimen…”we” inform KA that posters are operating in ink- to add a humorous crossword reference to the otherwise dry, machinelike exchange. Unless KA possesses Erasermate QWERTY module, that which is typed- or clicked- is set in stone. That is all.
30 June 2008, on 8:26 pm
“Is it time to separate marriage and state?”
No; it’s time to separate marriage and church - at least in the sense of “marriage” being a legal contract signed and witnessed publicly. Otherwise, if you want to jump the broom in a Wiccan ceremony and consider yourself handfast while eschewing the legal process, it’s still a free country - just don’t expect the same legal benefits as those who have gone through the state procedure.