President George W. Bush said Saturday that the venerable institution of marriage needs to be protected. He urged Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment that would redefine marriage as a union between one man and one woman. But who’s really threatening the institution of marriage, and does it need to be protected at all? Is there a better way?
“Marriage is the most enduring and important human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society,” Bush said. “Marriage cannot be cut off from its cultural, religious, and natural roots without weakening this good influence on society.”
So why, then, is government involved in marriage at all? Why isn’t it being left to the church where it properly belongs?
It has not generally been within the purview of governments to regulate or sanction marriage in any way. This function was left to the churches. In America this all changed in the mid-1800s with the introduction of marriage licenses, which states issue if a white person wanted to marry a black person. (Black’s Law Dictionary) Now all states issue marriage licenses to almost everyone who is getting married, leading some churches to complain bitterly and urge their congregations not to obtain marriage licenses.
So why does the government want control of marriages, anyway? To take control of you, your property and your children, by your consent. Here’s an example:
When you repeat your marriage vows, you enter into a legal contract. There are three parties to that legal contract: 1) you; 2) your spouse; and 3) the state of Ohio. The state is a party to the contract because under its laws, you have certain obligations and responsibilities to each other, to any children you may have, and to Ohio. — Ohio State Bar Association
That’s right, you get the marriage license, and your marriage is a civil marriage, not a religious one! God goes right out the window, replaced by the state.
There’s also the issue of government benefits. Couples who are married under civil marriages are treated differently by the government, which, one could argue, is itself a violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. But since you agreed to the contract with the state, there’s not much the Constitution can do for you.
Speaking of the Constitution, there’s a proposed amendment making its way through Congress which would define marriage in the United States as “only of a legal union of one man and one woman.”
It’s absolutely vital that everyone oppose this encroachment into the domain of the church, for this would once and for all eliminate religious marriages and render them unrecognizable in any state; only a civil marriage between you, your spouse and the state could be recognized.
Ultimately, the only way to save marriage is to get government out of it altogether: get rid of marriage licensing and any government benefits or penalties for married couples, leaving marriage to be defined by each church. The churches can then work out for themselves, as they always have, whether to recognize marriages made in other churches, and at least in one aspect of life, the state would be out of our bedrooms and out of our churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship, as the state doesn’t belong in either place.
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Rustifer
Jun 03, 2006
For the most part, I agree with you. I come at it from a slightly different approach, however. The Supreme Court recently ruled on Anna Nicole Smith’s inheritance from her elderly husband. I believe that this was an initial attempt to establish federal authority over the institute of marriage.
As you rightly point out, a marriage license is a contract between two people and the state. A Constitutional amendment would suck the power out of a marriage contract. I agree with you also that a marriage should be between the people and their Gods; when the state gets involved in that, we lose a religious meaning to the marriage and it becomes a mere civil ceremony.
I’ve been a proponent of seperating those two things for a while; allow the State to decide who can marry whom and to receive the benefits of that union. And to allow Churches to join the people in whatever sacraments they value.
Charles Stricklin
Jun 04, 2006
The problem with leaving marriages entirely to religious groups is mostly a legal one. It isn’t simply two people agreeing to split their expenses, it’s insurance and tax status and wills and guardianship and parenting and all the minutia that is everyday life.
Personally, while I oppose homesexual marriages, I’m certain that’s a matter best left to the individual states to decide, not the federal government in a constitutional amendment.
Michael Hampton
Jun 04, 2006
Charles, you made my argument for getting government out of insurance and taxes and wills and guardianship and parenting and all the minutiae which comprise everyday life for me.
Mary
Jun 04, 2006
“committment to love and serve…” Serve? All those cheating/beating spouses, prove that point, eh? I never understood why one human being could stand in front of two people and say “you’re married” (by the power vested in me by God”,.
The controversy is about two things. One unmarried couples living togethere that want government or employee benefits as part of a couple. The other for homosexuals and lesbians. Perhaps the answer is for gay men to marry lesbian woman, and each couple can get recognized by the law, yet marry privately to their true love, and all 4 can live happily ever after (like other married couples) legally getting benefits through the deception. The government controls everything we do in life, and I’m a bit tired of it.
Michael Hampton
Jun 04, 2006
If you’re so tired of government controlling everything, why propose another system of government controls to fix a non-existent problem?
Jun 06, 2006
Library Monk - the blog of Dan Greene » Blog Archive » Solution to the gay marriage “question”
Freddie Montana
Jun 08, 2006
Sir: You have not taken this argument to its logical conclusion. Let us assume, for the sake or argument there is a constitutional ammendment defining marriage. It has duly been ratified by the states and the church, of which I am a member praises it lofty goals; and along comes a case like Anna Nicole Smith. Some congressman or senator could sneak in an amendment that read something like this:
Marriage is herby defined as a union between a man and a woman; except there be a twenty year difference between their ages.
Of course that amendment would pass through conference when these Brilliant people stand up and say they support: Conference Report 1356. So now, no marriage if people are greater than 20 years apart.
The next amendment could be based on wealth. We already have that; it’s called a prenutial agreement but let’s codify it. Then there could be another amendment that questions one’s sanity. Government could do it! And on, until some one stand up and pin the tail on the donkey:
You see where I am going with this?
An amendment banning marriage by color would work because all the other stupid ones have already passed! That is why this amendment is so odious and good people should stand against it.
For the record: Anna Nicole Smith deserves her husband’s fortune because she was his wife; if only for a day! The son no longer had any claim on his father’s money because he, the father married again, and the father was wise enough to give his son his inheritence before he married A.N.S.
This should be a slam dunk case but, like everything else, it is always about the money. Always!
Kevin Fields
Jun 12, 2006
Marriage has served as a legal tool for thousands of years to establish legal responsibilities and rights of the parties involved, and the parties which will be established underneath them (ie, children & other relatives). So it is important for government to have some say in legislating these rights so that they are delegated in a fair and impartial manner.
The reason that the church (any church) is involved is simply for the fact that the Roman Catholic Church assumed those duties in the Middle Ages. Most nations were broke and were being ran by uneducated men who barely held their societies together with what little armies they had, and had already started turning to the Church to feed their poor. The Church had money, they had educated men who could read and write.
Governments eventually re-assumed this power, but the notion of marriage equating to love made its introduction during this time, and it’s what most churches pimp out now. In this day and age, you don’t HAVE to have marriage to act as a tool to assign legal rights and responsibilities. It isn’t even expensive to hire a lawyer to negotiate such legal contracts for you. The churches can no longer manage this, so they instead peddle it as something that people in love do for each other.
But, the institution of marriage still makes it very cheap and convenient to tie all of this up into one covenant.
You don’t need marriage to display your love an affection for each other. You also don’t need marriage to manage your legal rights and responsibilities. Neither does the church need a state-sanctioned license to establish a marriage within the church — so long as such a marriage is not fradulently promoted as a state-sanctioned marriage.
Ideally, to me, the best thing to do is go ahead and allow gays and lesbians to marry under state-sanctioned marriage. There is no reason for such inequality under the law.
This is no threat to church-sanctioned marriage. Churches are considered sacred and private institutions, and as such they do have the right to determine who is and is not counted as their members. If they do not want to register a gay couple as one of their own, that’s their business. If the gay couple is upset that no church wants to validate their marriage, that’s really an issue of faith between them and the church.
What churches are afraid of is if they start rejecting state-sanctioned marriages of gays, that they will lose their tax exemptions because of the discrimination. I don’t think this is true, because no church is under any order to offer state-sanctioned marriages to begin with. They do so because it is convenient, and even because it makes them money. But there is no such requirement or duty. Churches are free to close themself off from offering government services. And I think that is what they should do in this case.
Dorothy Nicholson
Nov 15, 2006
If there is a constitutional ammendment to define marriage as between a man
one man and one woman, it will allow a gay man to marriy a straight, or a lel
a lesbian to marry a straight man.
This is certainly more immoral than allowing gay men to marry gay men,
and lesbian women to mary lesbian women.
When gays, or lesbians marry straight persons, they can become parents. The Children of these unions have to be raised by gay or lesbian parents.
Is that desirable?
If there is a recessive genetic trait passed on to offspring, it will
result in creating more homosexual grandchildren or great grandchildren.
Armetria
Dec 29, 2006
I believe that one man and one woman is to be joined with God not the goverment. Justice of the peace marriages are not sacred and not of God.
Dorothy Nicholson
Dec 30, 2006
The proposed Constitutioinal ammendment does not state that a homosexual man cannot marry an straight woman, or that a lesbian woman cannot marry a straight man. This has been happening in the past, and causes a lot of heartache to the couples and their offspring.
The ammendment just says “Marraige should be definded as between one man and one woman.
Should gay people not have the legal right to marry each other, then they will continue to gain social respectability by marrying straight people. That does not make any sence at all.
kadence
May 03, 2007
i agree