"Warren" wrote in message
news:s%YNc.48987$eM2.44420@attbi_s51...
Vox Humana wrote:
I think that marriage is an institution that has changed with time
and will continue to change. The religious right will tell you that
for
5000 years, marriage has been between one man and one woman. However,
the
Bible details how people like David had many wives and even more
concubines.
Marriage wasn't even adopted as a sacrament of the Catholic Church
until the
Council of Trent in 1563. That makes it a rather new institution.
The
ultimate challenge to the stability of marriage is easy divorce, but
no one
proposes to prohibit divorce in the Constitution.

Marriage has changed even over the past 100 years. A century ago many
churches wouldn't recognize marriages with partners outside the faith.
Some allowed a conversion of sorts, but they still would look down on
the folks who dared to challenge the sanctity of marriage.

Of course many ethnic groups still prefer marriages within their own
ethnic group, but it wasn't that long ago that if the ethnic group was
of another race, in some states it wasn't just shunned -- it was
illegal.

Whatever happens with the legal view of same-sex marriages, it's not
going to make a lick of difference to who lives with who, and who loves
who. There always has been love across the boundaries, and always will
be.

The problem is that marriage is more than what happens after a
certificate is obtained at the courthouse. Marriage is a legal contract
much like a business partnership. And marriage is the foundation of a
"traditional" family. Partners in marriage sometimes love each other.
Sometimes they don't -- or they stop loving each other. And some
marriages (common law marriages) never had a legal piece of paper
signifying the start of the union.

Before we can have a rational dialog as to whether same-sex marriage is
appropriate, we have to define what marriage really is, and what is the
state's roll in marriage.

If one believes in the separation of church and state, then a marriage
is simply a partnership with certain rights given to each partner. It's
only when religious definitions of marriage are brought into the picture
that we start seeing restrictions on which adults may enter into these
contracts, and with who they may enter into those contracts.

Ultimately, church and state need to be separated. Churches have no
business imposing their narrow view upon everyone else, and states have
no business imposing broader guidelines upon churches than what the
churches will accept. And the only way to do this is for one or the
other to get out of the whole marriage thing.

Since churches seem to be grabbing onto the term "marriage" as being
something defined in the eyes of their God (or the guy who says he's
God's voice on Earth), let's go ahead and let the churches have whatever
they want to call a "marriage". Take "marriage" entirely out of the
secular law. Replace it with some other term for purposes of the state,
and legal issues, and then look solely to the constitution and the state
constitutions to decide what kind of discrimination is allowed, if any.
Churches would be free to recognize or not recognize whatever they want,
and to make those choices independent of any state intrusion.

This needs to be done for the protection of the churches, and the
protection of people who choose not to belong to a church. Separation of
church and state. I know it's a new concept that some folks won't be
able to accept, but I think it's a good idea. It almost rolls off the
tongue: "separation of church and state."

And since I can't spin this back to anything to do with Home Depot, I've
changed the subject line, and people not interested can easily skip the
rest of this thread.


I agree completely. I found it interesting that Gov. Romney suggested that
the government get out of the marriage business and simply issues civil
union certificates to everyone, leaving "marriage" to religious
institutions. This is probably the only time I will ever agree with him. I
do think that would be the very best solution. As you point out, religious
sects are not required to marry everyone who shows up with a license. Most
churches decide who they will marry and what those people have to do to
qualify for marriage in that church. Orthodox Jews don't recognize
marriages between Jews and gentiles, nor are priestly lines of orthodox Jews
able to marry converts. In doing some research on this subject, I found
that there is a movement in the fundamentalist Christian world that also
thinks the state should remove itself from the marriage business. They
reason that marriages are an institution of the church and the state has no
right requiring that people get a license before being able to receive a
holy sacrament.