01/03/10 04:59 - ID#50735

Cats in a bag

This gay/christian thing has been popping up around conversation lately. I've given a lot of thought to it.

I think the key sore point right now is that neither side feels like they are being treated fairly. The Christians feel they're cultural/religious beliefs are being desecrated. And the LBGT are feeling second class and discriminated against.

And right now it all comes down to marriage.

I'm going to express some sentiments neither side will feel entirely comfortable with, but compromise is getting what you mostly want to get something to work. And, hopefully work well.

First: marriage belongs to religion. It's religious based cultural rite. The only reason historically to get married was to be recognized as man and wife before God and community. This is before church and state were different entities. And before we had multicultural communities.

Second: as church and state should be separate, ecclesiastical leaders should not be able to officate for state unions. It's and archaic and majority-centered practice.

Following this, marriage and civil unions should be separate and belong to their respective groups. Meaning, all people who chose to get married have to also have a separate civil union before the state by a state appointed official. It also means any religious organization who marries same gender couples can, as well as the converse.

This would not rid us of bigots from either side; but, it can further highlight them for what they are. Optimistically, this would diminish their support and/or help them to rise above their myopic views.

My hope is that we can find a compromise that allows us to enjoy the relationships we already have as well as the ones we have yet to create.

metalpeter writes at 08:00:16 01/05/10 - Comment #54222: Here is what I don't get about the Separation of Church and State. If you go and get Married in a church why do you get all these legal rights from the government it doesn't make any sense. The other thing that I don't get is that the state says that if a church Marries you, you are married so then why if a church does a Plural Marriage why is that illegal. Why can't one wife take care of the kids and one cleans the house and takes care of the bills and the other is out working. When I say wife I mean by position not gender. If man stays home and takes care of the home and a women is out working then the man is the wife.

3 Notes:
--Plural Marriages used to be common in other countries not sure about now
--They Used to be legal here in this country
--I'm not endorsing doing the incest crazy get married to a 14 mormon cult stuff that sometimes goes on.

drew writes at 01:07:49 01/04/10 - Comment #54203: I wrote about this on another blog:

:::link:::

The push of Christians to enforce their understanding of marriage on a civil level has little if any Biblical grounds. If we knew our faith better, folks would be glad when we practiced it.

jason writes at 12:52:49 01/04/10 - Comment #54201: That's interesting, Janelle, someone actually thinking it's a sacrament and not something vested in Jim Bob by New York State.

janelle writes at 12:09:03 01/04/10 - Comment #54200: A small minority of radical conservative christians would agree with you Jason that it is not the government's place to sanction marriage. Among these kinds of Christians, individuals are getting married in the church, without licenses from the government.

jason writes at 10:20:19 01/04/10 - Comment #54199: In my perfect world government is out of the marriage business, no exceptions. No sanctioning of it, and no recognition of it whatsoever. No giving of government breaks of any kind to married people. The government has no business promoting marriage, or allowing private companies to discriminate based on marital status.

james writes at 10:30:06 01/03/10 - Comment #54197: Here is the thing, civil marriage and religious marriage have nothing to do with each other. The separation of church and state principal in this country guarantee that. Unlike in Mexico, where the new marriage equality law in Mexico City forces churches to perform these marriages.

When you get married you go to some government office and fill out a form. Bam. You are married. Then, some couples go to a Church and have a ceremony performed. The fact is, religious marriages are happening right now. Some churches are happily marrying same-sex couples. Churches with stupid philosophies on marriage refuse to do so and can continue to do so for eternity.

This has nothing to do with religion. And religious institutions who say it is have no idea what their legal relationship to marriage is. This has everything to do with civil rights associated with something that happens to have the same name as a religious ritual. The fact that so many people do not know this is a testament to the success of the right in this debate and the utter failure of the left to speak sensibly about what is obviously discrimination.

jenks writes at 08:49:11 01/03/10 - Comment #54196: yeah, I sort of don't even get what the big deal is.

I mean, if the religious groups have a problem with gay marriage- fine. Then don't do it. I'm sure the gays wanting to get married don't want to have anything to do with those churches anyway.

But don't tell them they can't have a completely NON-religious civil union, to afford them the rights etc of other married couples.

But no, as usual, the religious nuts want to force their agenda on people who want no part of it.

And of course, that doesn't solve the problem for gays who WANT a religious marriage.

The whole thing is a total no-brainer to me. Sigh.

jim writes at 05:18:08 01/03/10 - Comment #54191: This is a commonly suggested compromise, usually from the left (I've never seen it from the right, so it's not really much of a compromise), but it's ultimately a lot less likely to come about then just extending marriage rights to same sex couples.

Most directly, removing state sanctioning of marriage is not acceptable to religious groups, as they feel that the state has a duty to reinforce the family and traditional life. It's the big reason for opposing same sex marriage to begin with. This compromise actually goes even further afield, and completely removes state sanctioning of marriage instead of merely extending it to a religious out-group, in the sociological sense. It'd also be a perceived attack on essential social/familial fabric.

Secondarily, whereas the current path (extension of marriage to same sex partners), is a matter of time and attrition (essentially waiting for opponents of same sex marriage to die of old age in large numbers), wholesale change to marriage laws and customs needed for this suggested compromise to happen would require a more-than-incrementalist approach to tackling the issue, which no side appears to be up for.

Third, many (although a minority) of churches will gladly 'marry' same sex couples, so there's no clean division between civil unions / marriage. This compromise is essentially completely the same as just allowing gay marriage, but removing the loaded word from discourse. It doesn't address the cultural divide, that the state either should or should not be involved in promoting traditional families over alternatives.

My take is that as fewer and fewer of each generation attend church regularly, marriage will cease to have as much religious currency as a hot topic. This whole argument will seem quaint in several decades. I want to be able to get married -- but if not now, I know I'll win by default eventually, barring any changes to the slope of cultural and demographics changes in America.

paul writes at 05:10:45 01/03/10 - Comment #54190: I truly agree with this. They should be totally separate. One for rights and responsibilities which is officiated by the state and one for religion. That way all the different religious groups can have their own rules and rights associated with their own version of marriage.