Is It Time For Churches to Ignore State "Marriage" Licenses?

I'm bumping up this old entry. I should probably write a new version soon.



As marriage neutering activists have tied up courts across the country and shoehorned their talking points into television shows and other media, some members of the clergy have said they don't mind or even support the neutering of state licenses, because according to them, state marriage licenses have nothing to do with church wedding ceremonies. I have suspected that most clergy making such statements are either full of dung (hey, that’s Biblically appropriate language) or haven't thought through what they’re saying.

How could it be tested?

What it would take is for a couple to approach a such member of the clergy and ask to get married by that person in his or her church. If the clergy agrees, the couple could then explain that this would not be a legally recognized marriage as they would not have a state marriage license, because both of them are still legally married to other people. Those marriages were performed at a county office, by a non-clergy officiant, and that they both consider those marriages dead, perhaps because of infidelity on the part of their partners (a Biblical justification to divorce).

Would the clergy still perform the wedding? If not, then they were not being honest or coherent in their statements that state licenses are a separate matter. If they would perform the wedding, then at least they would be consistent.

What is marriage, according to the Bible?

They Seem To Have Skipped Over Something

Something that made the social networking rounds is the graphic found at this link. Supposedly, it is "How to Explain Marriage Equality to an Idiot"

Tired of hearing the rightwing nutjobs claim that if gays and lesbians can get married, soon people will be marrying their dog or their toaster? Here's a handy dandy chart to help you patiently explain the obvious differences.

Good use of "handy dandy", too. Extra points for that.

Notice what's missing?

The common question asked by people who, like every great civil rights leader in history, like every major religious tradition, like every person involved in writing and adopting the Constitution, and like every President up through this writing, understands that marriage unites a bride and a groom, is "If we change marriage laws to include homosexual relationships, why not polygamous relationships, incestuous relationships, pedophiliac relationships, relationships with animals, and relationships with inanimate objects?"

The text and the graphic completely ignore polygamous and incestuous relationships. I can only guess as to why. Here are my guesses:

1. These people want those relationships to get marriage licenses, too.

2. They realize the same justification they use for neutering marriage licenses also applies to polygamous and incestuous relationships.

Of course, we all know it is ridiculous to compare same-sex relationships to heterosexual polygamy and incest. After all, the latter two kinds of relationships have been historically recognized as valid marriages.

Oh, and by the way, homosexual people can get married, whether they want to or not. What we're opposed to is equating nonmarital relationships, including brideless or groomless relationships, to marriage, not "gays getting married".

Regarding adults marrying children: There are organizations pushing to lower the age of consent, and organizations that advocate the "rights of children" in a way that would also support a child being legally able to consent to marriage over the objections of their own parents.

Regarding "marrying" animals: There are governments seriously considering recognizing some (non-human) animals as persons. Why wouldn't such persons have the right to marry other persons?

And yes, some people have "married" inanimate objects.

The point is, the marriage neutering activists, like the marriage defenders, believe that marriage means something and that whatever doesn't fall into that category isn't marriage. It is a dispute of definitions, not a matter of hatred. The definition that marriage unites a bride and groom has been the universal definition through all of the cultural differences. Two men can't consent to marry each other any more than they can consent to an ash tray being food. Without both a bride and a groom, it isn't marriage, and that some governments have recently said otherwise only shows those governments to be defective, along the line of a government that would label water as cow's milk. One bride, one groom IS marriage equality.

We have our own graphic for people having a tough time understanding this.