Keep religion out of the marriage debate - Gene Robinson

[cbayer]

http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/02/07/mail-submisssion-subject-robinson/IDzcsYO0YXXL8yP3lEabXO/story.html

The Right Rev. Gene Robinson is the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire. He is the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop.






BY NOW, most New Hampshire citizens are well aware that the state legislature will vote on a bill to repeal the Marriage Equality Act of 2009. Polling data, letters to the editor, news articles, and editorials have all filled our newspapers and airwaves, and legislators are being lobbied by both proponents and opponents. Each side seems to take a different tack - from economics to civil rights, from basic fairness to family values, and, of course, the big bogeyman in these debates, religion. But as someone who has spent his life in religious life, I believe it has no place in this public policy debate.

While we are “one nation under God,’’ no one set of religious values is or ever has been the basis of the law of our land. Theological questions about same-sex marriage may be an issue for many lawmakers, and while I respect their faith, I want them to consider that these important religious questions should remain in the religious sphere and out of the State House.

That’s because while our government cannot impede the right to the free exercise of religion, no particular religion has the right to impose its values on our society. In fact, different religions view this matter differently, with some embracing their gay and lesbian congregants who want to join in marriage, and others rejecting it altogether. What we do know, however, is that organized religion has a way of changing and evolving as well in responding to society and to its own internal pressures. This is not a static issue. Indeed, if we had ceded civil rights to religious objections in the 1960s, it would still be legal to prohibit interracial couples from marrying in our country.

Instead, policymakers need to be reminded that the United States is not a nation founded on religion: We are a nation founded on the rights of individuals and on the basic premise that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’’

More at link

[Adsos Letter]

1. "...no particular religion has the right to impose its values on our society."

"...policymakers need to be reminded that the United States is not a nation founded on religion: We are a nation founded on the rights of individuals and on the basic premise that 'all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'"

Amen, and amen.

[cbayer]

2. He is so right on the mark here, imo. Been one of my personal heroes for

a long time.

[freefaller62]

3. Why is government involved in the first place?

I'm still trying to find when marriage became the government's business.

[laconicsax]

4. You have it backwards.

Marriage has always been a civil institution. Religious groups have adopted it over the centuries, but their involvement is immaterial. A couple can elect to have a religious joining ceremony with all the trimmings, but it's still a civil institution.

For example, a married couple has joint property. In the event of a death or divorce, the issue of property rights comes up and being a legal matter, it's the government's business.

If there are children, the issue of custody and inheritance comes up and being a legal matter, it's the government's business.

When you look at the issue of who can and can't get married (siblings as an example), you have a legal matter, which makes it the government's business.

The only places where a religion has any right to decide these matters is in a theocracy, but even then, it's still the government's business.

[MarkCharles]

6. Exactly right! Marriage is a contract recognized by

governments.

Anything else (religious ceremonies, etc.) is just icing on the cake!

[Igel]

20. Backwards.

Civil society recognized marriages for a long time before Xianity got involved. It got involved mostly because the religion recognizes marriage as something important and because churches were appropriate public venues for the local rituals. At first, the outside of the churches.

Governments only got involved when it was time to start regimenting society beyond what was needed for proper taxation and labor allocation at the village level.

In governments that were also churches the difference between religious and government regulation/prescriptions might be hard to tell. It's easier to see in places where government and religion were distinct--for example, where the king or baron was not a priest, standardly the case in most of Europe.

[Thats my opinion]

9. I have long-since proposed in writing

that all such relationships stand on equal footing by getting a contract to live together from the state. If then the couple wants a religious blessing they can seek that from the religious institution--but it has no legal standing.

[laconicsax]

11. Could you clarify what you mean?

"...getting a contract to live together from the state."

Roommates live together. Should they be required to seek a state cohabitation contract to do so?

How does this cohabitation contract work? Does it prohibit more than two adults from living under the same roof, or in the case of three or four (or more) roommates, does everyone sign the contract, paving the way for group marriages? Since when is cohabitation the same as being married? What about couples who, for any number of circumstances, don't live together? Are they ineligible to get married?

Something about this doesn't make any sense.



As for the idea as a whole (a couple entering into a legal contract, then being free to have a religious blessing should they want one), how is that any different from how marriage currently works?

[Thats my opinion]

14. If any couple

wants the legal protection and the rights that come with marriage (inheritance, social security, etc. etc. etc.) they should get that by a legal contract, which is the state's business. Roommates only need to contract if they want a legal arrangement--which currently is what marriage entails. If they want a religious blessing of that relationship let them then go to the religious institution. But everybody is on equal footing before the law.

This gets the church outs of the state's business. It takes more seriously the "wall of separation."

Group marriage has nothing to do with this. Straw man. The contract is between two consenting adults.

[laconicsax]

16. You didn't answer my question.

How is what you propose any different from how it already works?

Right now, a couple wanting to get married must attain a state license to do so. If they want a religious joining ceremony, they are free to make that choice, but doing so is purely optional.

Why propose the current system as something new or different?

BTW: Since you never specified that your contract was between two consenting adults seeking the legal protections of marriage, the possibility of four roommates entering into your previously unspecified cohabitation contract as a sort of 'group marriage' is hardly a straw man, especially since the suggestion was made as a question of what you meant. Asking someone if their ambiguous statement meant something specific isn't a straw man.

[Thats my opinion]

17. Right now church officials can validate any license issued by the state

My proposal is that the religious institutions no longer have any legal authority. The church gets out of the legal business. That is the state's business. There is under this plan no prohibition for Gays, for instance, to obtain such a license. All couples must meet certain legal regulations: age, no other similar legal contract in effect, limited to two persons male/male. female/female, male/female and whatever sanctions the state places on obtaining the license.

Any religious ceremony would be purely religious and has no legal purpose It separates church and state. it resolves the GLBT issue.

[FarCenter]

5. Hard to do, since marriage is a Catholic sacrament

It would be easier to keep the state out of marriage.

State laws, etc., should be changed to use "civil union" instead of marriage everywhere. The state should not recongnize marriage at all.

[dmallind]

7. Makes you wonder what Thutmose II and Hapshepsut were doing 1500 yrs before Catholicism was an idea

What with their marriage agreement and all that.

[Goblinmonger]

8. Religion co-opted marriage. Not the other way around.

Blather from the religious hoping to stop same-sex marriage saying the opposite aside, of course.

[Humanist_Activist]

10. The Church didn't get involved in marriage until well after it was established...

only then did it become a sacrament, and that was only because the people pressured the church into it. Before that, for thousands of years, marriage was a civil contract, usually a property transfer of the wife being sold to the husband by her father or living male relative. This varied by culture, of course.

[laconicsax]

12. How do non-Catholics get married then?

It seems that you have little to no idea of how marriage works because if you understood the subject matter, you'd know that marriage is, and always has been, a legal and civil (read: government) matter.

[FarCenter]

13. Non-Catholics would be married by their religious body, subject to the specific religous law

This would be similar to Israel, which uses the Ottoman system where marriage is a function of the several religous bodies.

It would be different in that a religious marriage would not be recognized by the civil authority. For a legal relationship to exist between two people, a civil union would be required.

The civil union could be entered into by any two people without qualification other than legal competency.

[laconicsax]

15. Your civil unions are what marriage already is.

What you're proposing is unreasonable--it takes a civil institution, declares it religious, and sets up a new civil institution (presumably) identical to the one that was ceded.

Marriage is a civil institution. A couple wanting to get married must attain a state license to do so. They may elect to participate in a religious joining ceremony, but that choice doesn't make the marriage any less of a civil matter.

I suggest you read up on how legal marriage actually works before you continue pushing your scheme.

[Thats my opinion]

18. Your middle paragraph is exactly what I am suggesting.

My proposal is so unreasonable that it is exactly what happens in much of the world.

Nobody is saying it declares a civil institution religious. The civil institution is in place. It is not religious. For a religious blessing one goes to the religious institution, and that ceremony has no legal function.

[laconicsax]

19. I think you're confused.

FarCenter is saying that marriage should be made a strictly religious matter and civil unions be created to replace the legal construct that.

Your proposal, as I've noted upthread, is essentially identical to how marriage works in this country. You've elaborated to the point of actually specifying what makes your proposal different from the status quo, and I thank you for that, but please don't confuse your suggestion of a minor change to the system with FarCenter's proposal to take a civil institution, declare it religious, then create a new civil institution to replace the first one.