Rose Ross ([info]roseross) wrote in [info]dark_christian,
2008-11-16 10:33:00
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Separation of Church and State

I am curious:
If the government (state and federal) only recognised civil unions for everyone and left marriage to the churches, would you be content? If you answer, I'd also like to know if you are gay and/or if you are against gay marriage, if you are comfortable answering that. If you want to pass the question around, that would be great. So far, I've found opponents on the issue surprisingly agreed on this answer but I've only talked about it with a few folks.

(Many countries in Europe handle unions this way. A couple has a secular ceremony and become legal partners. If they want, they go to a church after that and are wed in holy matrimony.)

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(Cross-posted in my journal.)

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[info]xforge

November 16 2008, 18:40:58 UTC 3 years ago

That's exactly what I want - remove the word "marriage" from all state and federal documents. Everywhere. Nobody gets a "marriage license" from the county courthouse; they get a "certificate of union." That way, marriage is left to the churches where it belonged in the first place. In fact it *is* almost a 1st Amendment violation for the word to be in the documents.


[info]anycah

November 16 2008, 18:42:28 UTC 3 years ago

No, it's not. Marriage has not been the dominion of the church throughout human history, and has in some stages of its life been a civil institution more than a religious one.

[info]roseross

3 years ago

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[info]bushy_brow

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[info]redstar826

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[info]keristars

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[info]xforge

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[info]mmoneurere

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[info]underlankers

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[info]cimadness

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[info]underlankers

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[info]cimadness

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[info]underlankers

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[info]anycah

November 16 2008, 18:41:02 UTC 3 years ago

I'd be pretty satisfied with that, as then everyone is equal under the law and the churches might shut up. I'm straight and for gay marriage, but I don't see that change ever occurring.

[info]zorya_thinks

November 16 2008, 18:41:18 UTC 3 years ago

Yes. My husband and I have already discussed this and we think this is a good option. Let the state authorize civil union for the benefits currently associated with marriage that the state bestows and let the churches determine whom they will marry or not marry for the spiritual aspects.

[info]loopyzany

November 16 2008, 18:44:15 UTC 3 years ago

I'm straight, married, and for equal rights. I think this is an excellent idea.

[info]oshidori

November 16 2008, 22:30:48 UTC 3 years ago

Same here on all counts.

[info]vyctori

November 16 2008, 18:52:14 UTC 3 years ago

A friend and I have discussed this, and we think it'd be a great solution. Everyone gets a civil union--those whose religion has extra non-legal bits get to have a marriage ceremony. You just wouldn't get married in church without first having a civil union if you wanted to have your relationship recognised by the state.

Also, I'm bisexual (and Canadian) and I've talked about this with a straight (American) friend.

[info]brockulfsen

November 16 2008, 20:55:25 UTC 3 years ago

Actually it would be better if it was illegal to marry or anything like it without a civil union, but (as a hat tip to the poly) a union was between 2 or more people). That way you couldn't have The Profit Margin marrying 14 year old girls.

Add to that Australian style No Fault divorce, and the state can turn its back on the competing religious views on "marriage".

Want to Marry, lodge the forms, then go to church and get your gods' representatives to anoint you with the sacred monkey droppings or whatever, nothing to do with the state. Want a divorce, lodge forms with a fee at the courthouse. Want your church to recognize the divorce, pay the appropriate fee to them, dance three times around the Sacred Chicken (or whatever), or just walk away and join a different sect, nothing to do with the state.

[info]vyctori

3 years ago

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[info]lodrelhai

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[info]brockulfsen

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[info]lodrelhai

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[info]brockulfsen

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[info]lodrelhai

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[info]vyctori

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[info]quakehead

November 16 2008, 19:01:55 UTC 3 years ago

This makes the most sense to me. I'm not gay but not quite "straight", unmarried, and an atheist-agnostic.

[info]brigidsblest

November 16 2008, 19:14:40 UTC 3 years ago Edited:  November 16 2008, 19:15:37 UTC

Content? I'd be freaking ecstatic. That's how it should be, IMO.

I'm bi. I'm all for gay marriage. I contributed to No on Prop 8.

P.S. I've been married to a guy, twice. Both marriages were performed by a Justice of the Peace, not in a church.

[info]linda_a

November 16 2008, 19:30:14 UTC 3 years ago

I also agree with this idea. I am straight, in a long-term relationship, and totally for equal rights for all, including gay marriage.

[info]lurkitty

November 16 2008, 19:45:14 UTC 3 years ago

I've argued for this for some time. I'm bi and divorced. I really think that government should not be in the marriage business, nor should ministers or priests be signing government documents. Let those that want it be married in a church after they get their secular papers, regardless of gender.

[info]mijan

November 16 2008, 22:39:03 UTC 3 years ago

:D

*hugs you*

[info]fuzzytale

November 16 2008, 19:46:02 UTC 3 years ago

Not a fan. Straight, married, protested against passage of Prop 8 with my kids, and an agnostic who wouldn't be thrilled with the idea of no longer being allowed to be 'married' b/c that's the province of the church. I'm married to my husband, thanks, and I don't want a civil union with my 'partner' in its place.

[info]brockulfsen

November 16 2008, 20:58:58 UTC 3 years ago

So pay The Charitable Sect of St Toad to conduct a ceremony over a photocopy of your Deed of Civil Union so you can feel OK about calling yourself "Married".

My guess is that socially people will call in "marriage" and churches will still bitch about divorced people "marrying", people from the wrong clans "marrying" each other, people "marrying" someone of the wrong sex, religion, ethnic background or style of genital modification.


[info]sunfell

November 16 2008, 19:47:57 UTC 3 years ago

Sounds like an equitable solution all around.

[info]ellid

November 16 2008, 19:56:00 UTC 3 years ago

A secular marriage ceremony followed by a religious one, if desired, would not upset me. However, it should be called "marriage" regardless of the gender of the partners.

FYI, I am straight, divorced, middle aged, and belong to a church that has conducted marriages for same-sex couples for at least twenty years.


[info]aureantes

November 18 2008, 03:58:58 UTC 3 years ago

Thank you. I am so bloody tired of people thinking that all the problems of this area will be solved by removing the word "marriage" from civil law and leaving it to the churches -- we have civil marriage as an option anyhow, and it is currently under no religion's dictates just because it uses the word "marriage."

There's apparently a lot of people who don't understand the distinction between "secular" and "religious"....that in itself could use a good deal more public clarification.

[info]roseross

3 years ago

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[info]aureantes

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[info]roseross

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[info]aureantes

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[info]roseross

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[info]underpope

November 16 2008, 19:57:56 UTC 3 years ago

I like that solution, but it won't happen, because the word "marriage" is so ingrained into our society's political, legal, and social structure, and is considered a civil right.

This is why same sex marriage should be allowed; it legitimizes in a social sense the relationship that two loving partners of the same sex can have with each other (though, coincidentally, that's exactly the same reason the "no gay marriage" people often use).

I'm straight, happily married, and, quite honestly, the notion of gay sex gives me the willies big time. But I voted no on 8, attended rallies, and donated money to the "no on 8" campaign because, if marriage is considered a civil right, then in a democracy you don't get to vote on civil rights. I don't like the precedent it sets. And I don't think that just because I get weirded out by what two other consenting adults do in the bedroom doesn't mean they don't have the right to do it.

[info]westrider

November 16 2008, 21:00:38 UTC 3 years ago

Thank you! It always makes me happy to see someone support something because it's the right thing to do, even though they personally dislike it. Gives a much needed boost to my faith in Humanity.

[info]mijan

3 years ago

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[info]lovelynepenthe

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[info]mijan

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[info]inimagiodei

November 16 2008, 19:59:28 UTC 3 years ago

I don't think it's a perfect solution, but I think it might be the best answer. There are churches who would perform marriages for same sex couples.

However, I'd become concerned if civil unions become second class to marriages. So I guess I support this solution (and have for a long time actually) but with some hesitation.

[info]mmoneurere

November 16 2008, 20:10:17 UTC 3 years ago

I think it inappropriately reinforces theocratic religions' claims to having developed marriage as an "originally" religious institution. Civil marriage predates the involvement of any of the major arguers for letting their religion dictate the terms of civil marriage -- and civil marriage (or marriage as a social institution in less-statist cultures) has not historically been exclusively male/female. (Same-gender marriage has been rare but not non-existent, while "same-sex" marriage between people of different genders isn't even especially uncommon.) To cede a long-standing public practice to the sole use of religious groups is to yield to theocratic bullying in a way I'm really not comfortable with.

(Not that "traditional" marriage needs to be strictly maintained -- while egalitarian heterosexual marriages have certainly been widely practiced for thousands of years, patriarchal marriages seem to be a bit more common, and that is a "traditional" practice best done away with.)

--Gay, gender-atypical, in a religion which practices marriage equality, and until this month a resident of a state which didn't let theocrats set the terms of civil marriage.

[info]mijan

November 16 2008, 22:33:35 UTC 3 years ago

"Gay, gender-atypical, in a religion which practices marriage equality, and until this month a resident of a state which didn't let theocrats set the terms of civil marriage."

I don't know you, but I already like you. :)

[info]mmoneurere

3 years ago

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[info]mijan

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[info]mmoneurere

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[info]mijan

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[info]jgrace

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[info]mmoneurere

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[info]lovefromgirl

November 16 2008, 20:19:03 UTC 3 years ago

Bi, poly, and the product of a civil union. Sign me up.

[info]theonides

November 16 2008, 20:28:27 UTC 3 years ago

I don't care what the churches do. I expect gays and straights to be treated equally under the law.

I am bisexual, and an atheist. I can go to the courts to marry a man. I cannot do the same if I fall in love with a woman. It hardly seems fair that the state will sanction one relationship and denegrate the other. All I ask is that regardless of who I end up with, if anyone, that the relationship is treated the same by my government.

[info]brockulfsen

November 16 2008, 21:04:01 UTC 3 years ago

Agitate to follow Australia's lead.

Civil Celebrants.

Large religious groups can get authority to delegate to their priests the power to conduct marriages, small ones just put them through the Civil Celebrant course.

Marriage is making vows and signing a form in front of witnesses and an Authorized Celebrant (Civil or Religious).

In the UK you have been able to marry at the Registry Office for at least 50 years. Australia in the early 70s added the ability to do it wherever you could talk a Civil Celebrant into officiating (and the idea took off in a way never expected).


[info]jgrace

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[info]brockulfsen

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[info]jgrace

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[info]brockulfsen

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[info]tejas

November 16 2008, 20:35:19 UTC 3 years ago Edited:  November 16 2008, 20:43:42 UTC

I'm straight and divorced (likely never to remarry, but that's a personal issue :-).

I would prefer to see the tempest in a teapot over the word 'marriage' be ignored and simply fully enfranchise *all* consenting adults. It would be far cheaper and frankly, makes the most sense. But then, I'd like to see the need for someone to 'officiate' to be done away with. Sign the papers at the courthouse and you're done. If you want a ceremony, go for it, but it shouldn't be forced by the state, even if it's just before a JP.

If the religionistas manage to win out and legally reserve the word 'marriage' for religious ceremonies, then, yeah, the state needs to get out of the marriage business. But see above. It would be a "civil union" license and all the same rules would apply regardless of the various genders of the couple.

But... that's not going to keep people from considering themselves "married" when they walk out of the courthouse.

[info]aureantes

November 18 2008, 09:26:54 UTC 3 years ago

I think that committed same-sex couples should refer to themselves as married in every social venue and situation, regardless of their legal status, until the word itself ceases to shock as an item of contention. If there is such thing as "common-law marriage" for heterosexual couples, just imagine how broad that application ought to be, even without any benefit of ceremony.

Of course it will shock some people for a while because they haven't had any real exposure to the concept being demonstrated casually, but that, imo, is as much of a growing pain as with learning to ride a bicycle or swim (or deal civilly with strangers, for that matter). All things that can be learned once the process is initiated...the obstacle in a lot of places is that they've never had even that first shock of "damn, gays are human beings minding their own business, and they ain't out to get us after all!"

The terms "marriage" and "husband"/"wife" have been kept tactfully off the table for a long time in favour of "domestic partnership," "civil union" and "partner" -- and I think that that kind of legalistic forbearance and self-restraint on the part of gays and lesbians has been ill-repaid by society at large: people have been allowed to live largely in ignorance of the reality of (essentially) marriages and families that are just as intrinsically valid as their own -- the only difference being that they haven't been legally recognized as such. Society hasn't been challenged enough, in short, and it does need to be challenged and pushed off from the pool-edge of its own assumptions, before it will ever be reasonably "comfortable" with the idea of civil marriage equality.

We've all had shocks and reluctancies in our lives that we've had to get over. People will survive having their social assumptions dismantled...but it has to be done articulately, logically and casually, not tiptoed around as if gay couples deserved to be pushed back into the conspicuous linguistic closet.

[info]tejas

3 years ago

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[info]saintless

November 16 2008, 20:37:38 UTC 3 years ago

If the only difference is what a piece of paper says, then I don't really care. I guess I don't really care if my marriage is a marriage or civil union. At the same time, I don't think that marriage really is a concept that belongs to the church, not in the English tradition at least. I don't really know enough about Byzantine/Roman marriages to comment, but the Catholic Church did have a monopoly on marriage (and everything else) for a while; that doesn't mean it was always just an institution of the church.

If marriages were left to the church, who decides which church can perform a marriage and which can't? What about Wicca, which has had so much difficulty gaining acceptance in the military due to the lack of an official clergy or certification as such. If we just grant anyone permission to marry as a church authority, that's not going to appease the so-called traditionalists.

I'm of the position that allowing gays to marry doesn't hurt anyone, the evangelicals, mormons, and catholic bishops should just stay out of it.

not gay/ not against gay marriage.

[info]silversliver

November 16 2008, 20:45:30 UTC 3 years ago

Civil unions for everyone is my preferred way of dealing with the situation. I am gay, divorced, and in support of marriage equality for LGBT folk. Several people I know are also in favor of this, but I'm not sure how extremely religious people feel on the issue.

[info]lyght

November 16 2008, 20:50:13 UTC 3 years ago

I would be perfectly content with such a situation. I am currently in an LTR queer relationship, but consider myself bisexual/polyamorous.

Interestingly, I've heard that most U.S. polls show majority support for homosexual civil unions. The only reason the issue becomes a problem is probably because of the precedent for "separate but equal" not being sufficient to ensure equality, combined with the more controversial nature of specifically using the word "marriage" in relation to homosexual relationships (since we do not currently have heterosexual "civil unions").

[info]idemandjustice

November 16 2008, 20:55:00 UTC 3 years ago

If the government (state and federal) only recognised civil unions for everyone and left marriage to the churches, would you be content?

I would be okay with this as long as the MANY churches that are willing to perform marriages for gays are able to do so.

I am straight, and I am in favor of gay marriage.

[info]brockulfsen

November 16 2008, 21:07:39 UTC 3 years ago

So follow Australia and authorize Civil Celebrants to handle the paperwork and act as the *Government* representative saying "I now pronounce you Man/Woman/Cat and Woman/Man/Dog"

There's talk here of removing the right of Priests to be made celebrants by their church and force all to train and register as Civil Celebrants under the same rules.

[info]underlankers

November 16 2008, 21:05:11 UTC 3 years ago

I would not object, period.

I am gay, and thus for gay marriage. I don't see any reason to kowtow to the Fundies to get equal rights to an institution that straight people screw up (pun not intended) with impunity.

Now, as to why I support this, marriage should be left to the religion involved, as opposed to solely the Churches. Synagogues, temples, mosques, and Native religions should all have the right to marry the people within their respective spheres as they damn well please to.

[info]quitemonstrous

November 16 2008, 21:36:10 UTC 3 years ago

A secular marriage ceremony followed by a religious ceremony if the couple chooses. I think that it should still be called a marriage regardless of the gender of one's partner. I'm in favor of gay marriage. I am straight and married.

[info]alobar

November 16 2008, 21:56:53 UTC 3 years ago

I want the government to get out of the picture altogether. No civil unions, no laws regulating whether poly marriages are legal, no courts for divorces, no deciding who may or may not marry based on age, sexual orientation, or anything else.

Those who want protection in case the relationship does not work out can get an attorney to make up a legally binding contract similar to the pre-nuptial agreements some people already use.

What people do together, how they live, and how many are married in the same ceremony are absolutely no business of the government.

[info]brockulfsen

November 18 2008, 03:38:55 UTC 3 years ago

It would be for the best, but we'd need to start almost from scratch, who would be allowed to visit you in Intensive Care if you were unconscious. Who would, by default, get to sign away your organs if you died?

Who would have the authority to burn bury or drop off a boat your carcass after it had fulfilled its medical and social and religious functions after you had finished with it.

The UK/US/Australian/NZ legal systems have over a thousand years of assumptions about marriage and spousal rights and obligations.

Who would be free from compulsion to testify against you?


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