A Simple Solution To Marriage

[JCady]

There is a very simple, easy, and entirely democratic solution to the conflict between equal marriage rights for all and freedom of religion for bigots: permanently sever the link between the religious institution of marriage and the secular benefits currently attached to it. Let the religious have their ceremonies in private and include or exclude anyone they please. The government should not honor, recognize, or provide any special benefits to anyone's religious ceremonies. If the religious want secular benefits, they can do the same thing everyone else does: go to a county clerk's office and file the paperwork for a legal marriage. They should not get a "free" legal marriage attached to their religious ceremony when no one else gets that perk.

[Samuel]

Don't we already have that? After all, atheists can get married in the United States, so it isn't a religious institution, but a contract endorsed by the government.

[Turin]

There is a very simple, easy, and entirely democratic solution to the conflict between equal marriage rights for all and freedom of religion for bigots: permanently sever the link between the religious institution of marriage and the secular benefits currently attached to it. Let the religious have their ceremonies in private and include or exclude anyone they please. The government should not honor, recognize, or provide any special benefits to anyone's religious ceremonies. If the religious want secular benefits, they can do the same thing everyone else does: go to a county clerk's office and file the paperwork for a legal marriage. They should not get a "free" legal marriage attached to their religious ceremony when no one else gets that perk.

While I (or you, apparently) might think this seems like the easy solution, it also assumes that the whole question of gay marriage really is one of religious freedom. The reality is that the position the bigots hold is one of forcing everyone else to hold their own bigoted beliefs. Which is why all the noise they're making about the "sanctity of marriage" is nonsense -- they want to ostracize and dehumanize gay people, and this is just one more prong on that attack.

Your idea is workable, and a solution I'd love to see myself, but it also shows how dishonest the religious right has been about their whole reasoning.

[JCady]

Don't we already have that? After all, atheists can get married in the United States, so it isn't a religious institution, but a contract endorsed by the government.

Right now, the marriage license you get from the state does not constitute a marriage; it's merely PERMISSION from the government to get married. The subsequent religious or secular ceremony is the actual marriage. What I propose is, essentially, replacing the marriage license with a legal certificate of marriage and "demoting" the ceremony to be purely, well, ceremonial.

[Lost Soal]

Jesse Ventura said the same thing back in May on MSNBC

Well, first of all, I made a statement when I was governor and stand by it today. Love is bigger than government. Who the hell are we as a government to tell people who you can fall in love with? I think it‘s absurd that fact it‘s even being debated.

We can solve the problem simply. Government only acknowledges civil unions then you don‘t have to put your sex down. Let the churches acknowledge marriage. They are the private sectors. If they don‘t want to acknowledge it, they have every right to do so. How on earth can we even entertain the fact that government should have the ability to tell you as an individual who you can fall in love with? Ridiculous.

It sounds perfectly fine to me

[Beowulf]

Don't we already have that? After all, atheists can get married in the United States, so it isn't a religious institution, but a contract endorsed by the government.

Right now, the marriage license you get from the state does not constitute a marriage; it's merely PERMISSION from the government to get married. The subsequent religious or secular ceremony is the actual marriage. What I propose is, essentially, replacing the marriage license with a legal certificate of marriage and "demoting" the ceremony to be purely, well, ceremonial.

My marriage ceremony (or at least the first one, anyway) consisted of signing the certificate in front of someone from the County Clerk's office. I'm pretty sure it wasn't required to sign it in front of the clerk, but it was easiest.

[Eleas]

Right now, the marriage license you get from the state does not constitute a marriage; it's merely PERMISSION from the government to get married. The subsequent religious or secular ceremony is the actual marriage. What I propose is, essentially, replacing the marriage license with a legal certificate of marriage and "demoting" the ceremony to be purely, well, ceremonial.

It's a good idea, and voices to that effect are already being raised here in Sweden. The Swedish church is, perhaps surprisingly, divided on the issue. A number of priests are lobbying for the church to relinquish their right to conduct marriages of legal import. Other priests think it would diminish the power of the church still further.
A cynical part of me might say that the former opinion stems from the priests wanting to be able to veto marriages they disapprove of. When there's actual legal power behind the marriage ceremony, the issue of discrimination becomes clear-cut and actionable, which has led to more than one blowup in the past. Other pro-separation priests are, I'm fairly sure, honestly disgusted with the more intolerant aspects of their church, and desirous of change.

[Bounty]

We've got a system like that. The only valid marriage recognised by law is the one conducted by the major or his/her representative, at city hall, where the couple is registered as being married. Every other ceremony carries no legal weight and cannot be performed without an official wedding preceding it.

I don't really see why you'd want to organise marriage any differently. It separates the legal aspect of marriage, which is universal and non-discriminatory, from whatever ceremony you want to tack on afterwards - be it a full-blown church wedding, a goat sacrifice in a pentagram or just a toast with friends.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The problem is there is too much legal and cultural baggage to re-organize the system like that. It would require not only political capital, but massive massive amounts of money that no one wants to spend in order to reshuffle everything. In other words, it sounds nice and we would do it if building a system from the ground up, but that condition is not met.

[Terralthra]

Jesse Ventura said the same thing back in May on MSNBC

Well, first of all, I made a statement when I was governor and stand by it today. Love is bigger than government. Who the hell are we as a government to tell people who you can fall in love with? I think it‘s absurd that fact it‘s even being debated.

We can solve the problem simply. Government only acknowledges civil unions then you don‘t have to put your sex down. Let the churches acknowledge marriage. They are the private sectors. If they don‘t want to acknowledge it, they have every right to do so. How on earth can we even entertain the fact that government should have the ability to tell you as an individual who you can fall in love with? Ridiculous.

It sounds perfectly fine to me

I mentioned something similar a few weeks ago, and was jumped on for "wanting to make marriage exclusively religious," when we already have secular marriage ceremonies in the US.

[RedImperator]

There's certainly precedent for Western governments to get out of the business of tracking religious milestones in citizens' lives--birth certificates have replaced baptism records, for example.

[Patrick Degan]

The problem is there is too much legal and cultural baggage to re-organize the system like that. It would require not only political capital, but massive massive amounts of money that no one wants to spend in order to reshuffle everything. In other words, it sounds nice and we would do it if building a system from the ground up, but that condition is not met.

You don't have to build a whole system from the ground up —the civil courts already have that system with justices of the peace. What this entails is simply mandating, by law, that only civil marriage unions have validity as a legal contract. Anybody who wants the full-blown religious ceremony is free to do so, and churches can perform whatever ceremonies they like and include or exclude anybody they like depending on how backwards they are.

The papers have to be filed anyway to make a legal marriage through the churches or a judge as it is. So why not save a step and simply make that joint filing the actual act of contract for a legal, valid marriage? You don't even need a civil "ceremony" with a judge for that —unless you want to empower the clerks of court to ask the usual marriage questions as part of the procedure for filing.

[K. A. Pital]

There is a very simple, easy, and entirely democratic solution to the conflict between equal marriage rights for all and freedom of religion for bigots: permanently sever the link between the religious institution of marriage and the secular benefits currently attached to it. Let the religious have their ceremonies in private and include or exclude anyone they please. The government should not honor, recognize, or provide any special benefits to anyone's religious ceremonies. If the religious want secular benefits, they can do the same thing everyone else does: go to a county clerk's office and file the paperwork for a legal marriage. They should not get a "free" legal marriage attached to their religious ceremony when no one else gets that perk.

Yeah, I never got the reason why Churches shoudl even administer marriage. There could be a Civil Status Registration Office set up by the Government, and the churchgoers can have weddings in Churches and so on, but their civil status record is gone by the RO. The RO or Court registering people wouldn't take much money (it takes a few RO's per a million-number city, and in small villages the marriage is recorded by the local government office in one of the townhalls). Compared to what the tax-exempt Churches syphon away from the people, hehe

90 years in the Eastern Bloc (including China) and it works. Of course, it's the action of godless communists so the US will never see marriage decoupled from the religious institutions that claim it's "sanctity" and such.

[The Defenestrator]

I have to question this whole line of argument. Right now, only 11 states have any kind of provisions for gay marriages or civil unions. If the rest of the country would accept gay unions that aren't tied to religion (and even ignoring that marriage isn't really 'owned' by religion in the US), then wouldn't they have already allowed civil unions?

[JCady]

I have to question this whole line of argument. Right now, only 11 states have any kind of provisions for gay marriages or civil unions. If the rest of the country would accept gay unions that aren't tied to religion (and even ignoring that marriage isn't really 'owned' by religion in the US), then wouldn't they have already allowed civil unions?

I am not advancing this as a strategem to advance the narrow cause of same-sex marriage. Which, by the way, has in some cases been so narrowly worded that it STILL leaves intersex people screwed -- gee, thanks so much. I am advancing it as a general solution to the absurd entanglement of church and state that is marriage under the current American system.

[Molyneux]

I have to question this whole line of argument. Right now, only 11 states have any kind of provisions for gay marriages or civil unions. If the rest of the country would accept gay unions that aren't tied to religion (and even ignoring that marriage isn't really 'owned' by religion in the US), then wouldn't they have already allowed civil unions?

I am not advancing this as a strategem to advance the narrow cause of same-sex marriage. Which, by the way, has in some cases been so narrowly worded that it STILL leaves intersex people screwed -- gee, thanks so much. I am advancing it as a general solution to the absurd entanglement of church and state that is marriage under the current American system.

Oddly enough, the more intelligent conservatives I've argued with about the matter would agree with you. I'm really not sure why this hasn't gotten more attention, at least as an idea. "Get the government out of marriage" would be a nice rallying cry...

[ArcturusMengsk]

The best thing that could be done in favor of marriage, I think, is openly advertising the names of all individuals and corporations which donate to the anti-marriage conservative forces and making them a laughingstock among the populace at large. If the homosexual community and its allies were able to find some way to pull together a coalition to boycott organizations like Taco Bell that contributed to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign, then they'd have to think over their financial interests. Without funding, these social conservative groups like Focus on the Family would never be able to disseminate their propaganda and it would be a massive victory for the movement. Go after their wallets and their hearts and minds soon follow.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Addendum: I understand that the LDS Church was really behind the shenanigans in California, and in a perfect world that worthless organization would have been put to the blade when it first formed. As it stands now, any good and decent individual would turn a blind eye to random acts of vandalism perpetrated against it.

[Vendetta]

The papers have to be filed anyway to make a legal marriage through the churches or a judge as it is. So why not save a step and simply make that joint filing the actual act of contract for a legal, valid marriage? You don't even need a civil "ceremony" with a judge for that —unless you want to empower the clerks of court to ask the usual marriage questions as part of the procedure for filing.

You don't need a judge, just a state appointed witness to the contract.

[Samuel]

I have to question this whole line of argument. Right now, only 11 states have any kind of provisions for gay marriages or civil unions. If the rest of the country would accept gay unions that aren't tied to religion (and even ignoring that marriage isn't really 'owned' by religion in the US), then wouldn't they have already allowed civil unions?

I am not advancing this as a strategem to advance the narrow cause of same-sex marriage. Which, by the way, has in some cases been so narrowly worded that it STILL leaves intersex people screwed -- gee, thanks so much. I am advancing it as a general solution to the absurd entanglement of church and state that is marriage under the current American system.

Oddly enough, the more intelligent conservatives I've argued with about the matter would agree with you. I'm really not sure why this hasn't gotten more attention, at least as an idea. "Get the government out of marriage" would be a nice rallying cry...

Because they are hypocrites? Anti "big government" usually means nothing of the sort. It generally is code for "less taxes by cutting social programs".

Mengsk, they tried crushing the LDS at its formation. It was part of the original Republican platform- to crush the twin evils of slavery and bigamy! To be fair, they have been better compared to the majority of churches at some times (my step-grandfather studied at one of their colleges because no other in the US would take him during internment). Of course, now they do little to distinguish themselves from all the other would be theocrats.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Mengsk, they tried crushing the LDS at its formation. It was part of the original Republican platform- to crush the twin evils of slavery and bigamy! To be fair, they have been better compared to the majority of churches at some times (my step-grandfather studied at one of their colleges because no other in the US would take him during internment). Of course, now they do little to distinguish themselves from all the other would be theocrats.

Yeah, I know, and a lot of the (Lincolnian) Republican revulsion at the LDS had to do with their horrible treatment of African-Americans, Natives, and other minorities. It is unfortunate that the effort to nip that particular cancer in the bud failed, but we must now live with such organized scumfuckers. Best to go all-out and assault the very foundations of the Church, I think. If we can show that ol' Joe Smith was a professional huckster and scam-artist, that his professions are in conflict with the historical and genetic record, then it will go a long way towards breaking the back of that foul cult. I want them annihilated, and I am willing to devote all of my resources and efforts towards that end, borrowing a page from Anonymous' war on Scientology.

[Samuel]

Mengsk, they tried crushing the LDS at its formation. It was part of the original Republican platform- to crush the twin evils of slavery and bigamy! To be fair, they have been better compared to the majority of churches at some times (my step-grandfather studied at one of their colleges because no other in the US would take him during internment). Of course, now they do little to distinguish themselves from all the other would be theocrats.

Yeah, I know, and a lot of the (Lincolnian) Republican revulsion at the LDS had to do with their horrible treatment of African-Americans, Natives, and other minorities. It is unfortunate that the effort to nip that particular cancer in the bud failed, but we must now live with such organized scumfuckers. Best to go all-out and assault the very foundations of the Church, I think. If we can show that ol' Joe Smith was a professional huckster and scam-artist, that his professions are in conflict with the historical and genetic record, then it will go a long way towards breaking the back of that foul cult. I want them annihilated, and I am willing to devote all of my resources and efforts towards that end, borrowing a page from Anonymous' war on Scientology.

It has already been shown that the genetic records don't match up. They call it "blind faith" for a reason. And they continue to grow!

[ArcturusMengsk]

Mengsk, they tried crushing the LDS at its formation. It was part of the original Republican platform- to crush the twin evils of slavery and bigamy! To be fair, they have been better compared to the majority of churches at some times (my step-grandfather studied at one of their colleges because no other in the US would take him during internment). Of course, now they do little to distinguish themselves from all the other would be theocrats.

Yeah, I know, and a lot of the (Lincolnian) Republican revulsion at the LDS had to do with their horrible treatment of African-Americans, Natives, and other minorities. It is unfortunate that the effort to nip that particular cancer in the bud failed, but we must now live with such organized scumfuckers. Best to go all-out and assault the very foundations of the Church, I think. If we can show that ol' Joe Smith was a professional huckster and scam-artist, that his professions are in conflict with the historical and genetic record, then it will go a long way towards breaking the back of that foul cult. I want them annihilated, and I am willing to devote all of my resources and efforts towards that end, borrowing a page from Anonymous' war on Scientology.

It has already been shown that the genetic records don't match up. They call it "blind faith" for a reason. And they continue to grow!

Oh, I'm well aware of this. Which is why we must fight back, before the entire American Southwest has turned into a bastion of Mormon idiocy. We must call upon its more libertarian graces to whip it into a stir to resist the hordes of moonbats spreading out from Utah and Temple Square; we must make them acknowledge Mormonism for what it is: a method of mind-control, no different from Scientology or Raelianism. I feel that secular humanists and the ilk have been far too forgiving to the religious zealots, afraid of being perceived of as aggressive in confronting their excesses. The time for timidity is past.

[JCady]

Mengsk, they tried crushing the LDS at its formation. It was part of the original Republican platform- to crush the twin evils of slavery and bigamy! To be fair, they have been better compared to the majority of churches at some times (my step-grandfather studied at one of their colleges because no other in the US would take him during internment). Of course, now they do little to distinguish themselves from all the other would be theocrats.

Yeah, I know, and a lot of the (Lincolnian) Republican revulsion at the LDS had to do with their horrible treatment of African-Americans, Natives, and other minorities. It is unfortunate that the effort to nip that particular cancer in the bud failed, but we must now live with such organized scumfuckers.

And they assure us that the 1978 "divine revelation" that the "seed of Cain" (i.e. African-Americans) should not be discriminated against even though their ancestors sided with Lucifer against god, had nothing to do with the fact that the IRS was about to yank their tax-exempt status over institutional racism.

[Darth Wong]

There is a very simple, easy, and entirely democratic solution to the conflict between equal marriage rights for all and freedom of religion for bigots: permanently sever the link between the religious institution of marriage and the secular benefits currently attached to it. Let the religious have their ceremonies in private and include or exclude anyone they please. The government should not honor, recognize, or provide any special benefits to anyone's religious ceremonies. If the religious want secular benefits, they can do the same thing everyone else does: go to a county clerk's office and file the paperwork for a legal marriage. They should not get a "free" legal marriage attached to their religious ceremony when no one else gets that perk.

I don't see how this is a solution, since this is the status quo. Religious marriage ceremonies carry no more weight in law than mere cohabitation (which is considered "common-law marriage"); legal marriage is determined by getting the legal marriage license and signing the legal marriage contract.