Marriage in the USA is NOT Sacred, It IS Civil

[stopbush]

Simple: get a church wedding in ANY STATE in the union WITHOUT getting a marriage license, and the STATE does not view the marriage as legally binding.

Get a marriage license in ANY STATE of the union without having a church service and the marriage IS legally binding.

Simple, no.

Since a "sacred" aspect to marriage is NOT mandated by the state, then there is no reason to disallow gays to marry as RELIGION puts the onus on gay marriage, not the state.

[liberalmuse]

1. 'Sacred'...

Marriage was basically selling your daughter to the highest bidder not too long ago. I don't know how this 'sacred' crap came about.

[stopbush]

2. Yep. The FIRST marriages on record took place in Egypt and were purely civil

arrangements, even though religion played an important part in all aspects of Egyptian life.

I guess the gods who instituted marriage were Horus and Isis. I wonder if the fundie Xians know that?

[Clovis Sangrail]

9. you need to go back further

there is evidence of Sumerian sacred marriage going back to ~4000BC (Inanna)
the earliest hieroglyphics are about 1000 years later

If you want to stick with Egyptians their marriages were less religious than others, however their marriages were performed not by the govt but by local priests.
(besides - the Egyptian govt had a religious basis itself )

[stopbush]

16. You're wrong about the Egyptians. The lower classes didn't even have

a rite or a contract for marriage. A girl simply moved in with a guy and they were considered married.

The earliest Egyptian ceremonies were purely civil. The patina of the gods being involved came later, and that was reserved mainly for the upper classes.

As far as the Sumerians - well, I don't think Jeebus or Yahweh were involved in "instituting" or "sanctifying" those marriages.

[Clovis Sangrail]

22. Jeebus and Yaweh are relative newcomers to the god business

regarding early Egyptian marriage, if a girl simply moved in and it was considered marriage ... what ceremonies "were purely civil"?
;)

Re: the patina of gods being involved only later
You've nicely ignored the fact that we have clear evidence of earlier religious marriage in the Sumerians.

You're entitled to your own opinions.. not your own facts.

[uppityperson]

7. And now, read the marriage statutes and it is about stuff.

Who owns what prior to the marriage, who is responsible financially, how to split it up if you split up. It is a legal partnership about stuff.

[Zenlitened]

3. Hey, stop being an anti-religious bigot!*

* :sarcasm:

[curse of greyface]

4. I was married before... are you sure about this "civil" nonsense

[annabanana]

21. Well, . . some are more civil than others. . . .n/t

[madrchsod]

my first marriage was far from civil......

the one now has been civil most of the time....marriage is a religious term.

[TexasObserver]

5. Agreed. It's a civil event. It is only a religious event to the religious.

[cushla_machree]

11. The church can sanctify your marriage

But it is still a civil institution.

Marriage is a contract with your community...its in our best interest to have two people commit to each other and make a family, regardless of who they are.

[TexasObserver]

13. The church can sanctify my balls.

And marriage would, indeed, remain a civil institution.

The arguments against gay marriage all come down to one thing: "NO, I DON'T LIKE IT!!"

[Leopolds Ghost]

30. The Catholic Church already has. And NO, as 60s generation pointed out, marriage is religio-cultural

construct. COMMON-LAW is the secular variant. One does NOT need a ceremony to be a household under common law. And a decent (much less atheist or irreligious) leftie would not look to government (especially not the US federal government) for affirmation on something so fundamental and personal. Attempts by state to regulate marriage are an intrusion on sep. of church and state. It is like Mormons lobbying for a proposition demanding that the state regulate who is or is not a Christian and specify that Mormons are Christian. It's bullshit whether you view marriage as a cultural institution designed to protect the property of the husband (the original goal of many societies) or a more fundamental institution predating culture (the view 80% of humans take) which the gov't has no business meddling in, any more than the gov't should regulate the life partnerships of migrant birds or who is or is not "illegal" (especially when big-govt "liberals" use it as an excuse to create bracero programs to preserve cheap labor -- the overall objective is to have the gov't categorize EVERYTHING according to the liking of the ruling cultural elite that happens to be in power, whether it be the Bushies or the Rahms/DLC.)

[stopbush]

15. And a church could refuse to sanctify (whatever the fuck that means)

a marriage and the state would still consider the marriage a legal marriage.

[TexasObserver]

19. True. The LEGAL aspects of marriage are enforceable. The religious aspects are not.

So much for that "love, honor and obey" shit.

[Leopolds Ghost]

31. Which is why the whole notion of the state defining or licensing marriage is fucking ridiculous.

[stray cat]

6. So lets call them all civil union licenses from the state and everyone is happy

If people what to say they are married and it has no meaning they can

[Toucano]

8. It is BOTH.

Or neither, depending on the individuals' involved points of view. If there were no civil marriage, people would still get married. With civil marriage, people still opt out and shack-up.

The point is PEOPLE DECIDE what their relationship is to them. The government has very little to do with it.

[Clovis Sangrail]

10. It's both

and while I fully agree that the civil aspect should be considered separately from the religious one it simply isn't.
Denying a religious connotation doesn't make it not there - it just reinforces the divide that resulted in prop 8 passing.

[stopbush]

14. My marriage has no religious connotation whatsoever. "It" is NOT there.

Ergo, there is no religious aspect to "deny."

I am married in the eyes of the state. I also deny that any gods exist. I believe that the lack of any historical evidence for the existence of Jesus means he never existed. Perhaps churches wouldn't recognize my marriage due to my denying that there is any truth to the fantasies upon which they built their religions. Fuck them.

The only difference between me being allowed to marry and gays being allowed to marry is that I'm married to a person of the opposite sex. I don't draw permission to or legitimacy of my marriage from any religion, but from the state.

[Clovis Sangrail]

23. the connotation is there whether you're religious or not

it doesn't really matter if I think the term n*gg*r has negative racial connotations or not - the fact is that it does
my opinion about the word makes no difference in that

I think you want the confrontation with religion - which is fine.
But this is about gaining equal rights - not tilting at religion because you don't think there's a god.

There's a path of way less resistance clearly in front of us .. why fight the churches?
If the important thing to you is really equal rights for GLBT then why are you tilting at religion when you don't have to?

[stopbush]

25. The connotation is obviously there in YOUR mind, but not in mine.

The reason for titling at religion is that religion is at the heart of denying gays the right to marry. Why not address the root of the problem?

I have a way to settle it: the government should give a bigger tax break for civil unions than marriages. Double it, in fact. Government could do so capriciously, just as they come out against gay marriage.

Give a bigger tax break to civil unions and you'd see a ton of married people ending their marriages and entering into civil unions just for the tax break.

[Clovis Sangrail]

26. since that soared past you I'll reiterate - it doesn't MATTER what you think

what you, or I, think doesn't change a connotation that society has placed on a word
and if you think there is no religious connotation to the word 'marriage' you're living in a very insular reality.

good luck with that

[Leopolds Ghost]

29. Anecdote is not evidence. n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. And the concept of 'common law marriage' recognised that, hundreds of years ago

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that at least some states in the USA still recognise the concept of common law marriage in law. England hasn't, for about 150 years, because it specifically set up the idea of a civil marriage, and told people that if they wanted their marriage recognised, but wouldn't, or couldn't, get married in a recognised church, they had to go to the state for it; but before that, the law recognised that people could be legally married without the Church of England's say-so.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

33. Texas has common law marriage.

This is a relic of frontier days.

However, to have a common law marriage, you need the following:

1. No prior legal impediments (i.e. not already be legally married to someone else, be of legal age, have legal capacity to contract).

2. Cohabit (this has a specific legal meaning)

3. Hold yourselves out as man and wife. For instance, if somebody says "your wife" or "your husband" in front of you, and you do not correct them, and say "We're only living together", then you have a common law marriage. At least one party must have intent to be married.

4. Contrary to popular belief, there is NO time limit on this. It is NOT "if you shack up you're automatically married after six months".

You can go to the courthouse and file a Declaration of Common Law Marriage, if you don't want to go get a marriage license and get married by a judge.

==========

Marriage is a CIVIL CONTRACT regulated by the State. Any religious trappings are optional.


And yes, I am a lawyer, although I do not play one on TV.

[ksimons]

17. Drive Thru-Marriage in Vegas PROVES how sacred it is! DEFEND MARRIAGE NOW! nt

[MineralMan]

18. Who Cares What a Church Thinks?

My wife and I are atheists. What some church thinks about our relationship is irrelevant to us. When we decided to marry, we went to the county clerk and got our marriage license. Since our families wanted a wedding, we got married by one of those Universal Life Church folks, who also played bass in several groups in which I played.

The ceremony had nothing whatever to do with religion...any religion.

Now, The Booga-Booga Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster may not consider our marriage as valid, but what is that to us? The state of Minnesota considers it valid. The IRS considers it valid. Everyone I know considers it valid.

What any church thinks about it has nothing to do with me, since I have nothing to do with them. Marriage is, essentially, a civil contract in the USA. It must be, since we have no state religion. Screw all religious folks who wish to discuss my marriage!

[Clovis Sangrail]

24. if you didn't recognize a religious aspect you wouldn't have used the word 'essentially' /nt

[Bluenorthwest]

27. Your posts are funny

filled with a haughty spirit and words of dishonest exchange. Playing games with serious issues. Not a good ad for your religiosity.
I think what prove marriage is sacred is Kevin Federline, Newt Gingrich, and Anna Nicole. I think of your sacrament each time I see a young mother with a black eye. How holy is the wife beater, for he shall inherit the Church. So many things daily show us that marriage is just so holy it hurts, women's shelters turning them away, a divorce rate through the roof, children beaten and even raped by their sanctified parents.
Which is more holy to you, a wife with a fat lip or a kid with a broken arm?

[Clovis Sangrail]

34. and yours show that you don't actually read.. and merely react

I'm an atheist and have been for many many years ... but you assume that I must be religious because I acknowledge it's impact on society.

[MineralMan]

32. Oh, really?

A trip to the dictionary will help you understand what is essential about "essentially." I use words carefully, and pay little attention to how they are badly used in popular media.

Please find something else to do. Wrongly criticizing people's use of the language is silliness.

[Clovis Sangrail]

35. I'm not picking on your use of language

I'm pointing out that it belies an acknowledgment of the religious significance of marriage

[RedLetterRev]

20. I think I can speak to that in NC

being a wedding officiant. "Solemnization without license" carries a nasty little fine, so yes, it is primarily a civil thing, even though you have to obtain a "marriage license" to do it. Oddly, though, in NC, if one doesn't want to be married (or united) by a magistrate or an empowered government (dys)functionary, the verbiage reads: "to any minister of any faith...". (I'm also registered in VA and the verbiage reads about the same -- except you do have to register as an officiant at any clerk of court, first.)

The content of the ceremony -- or whether you have one at all -- is entirely up to the couple. (Another good reason to hire a professional officiant -- you get what you want, rather than what "comes out of a box".)

Now, it's possible for churches (or independent officiants like myself) to join same-gender couples outside the color of law here, so long as they don't use the words "marriage", "matrimony", or "husband", or "wife". So I use "partners for life" or "united in love". It's fancy-dancing with semantics, but nobody is "forcing" anybody to marry anybody, no matter what the wackogelicals screed-on about, and I don't get in trouble with the law. It's a damned shame no matter how you look at it.

Where there's love, there's a way to celebrate. I just wish that commitments of all sorts had equal protection under the law. I'd marry my husbear in a nanosecond (sigh). He's already said "yes".

[Leopolds Ghost]

28. The STATE has no business defining marriage, it is a religio-cultural concept.

As Thomas Jefferson pointed out, religion has never been regulated by common law, which recognizes common-law unions IRRESPECTIVE OF CEREMONY for thousands of years before YOUR favored politicians decided to make a profit off of it by deciding to "recognize" and "license" marriage.

Absolutely ridiculous and symptomatic of the "Adlai Stevenson / Woodrow Wilson" wing of liberalism.

Anyone who embraces marriage as something symbolic and meaningful who is yet vituperatively irreligious is a rank hypocrite, as many of the (original) 60s liberals were quick to point out. The whole debate is what leftists used to call "counter-revolutionary" -- people who want to be accepted and embraced by a system that their parents railed against. Meanwhile, people are starving.

The right to eat and shelter is more important than the right to have one's duly recognized common-law union (gay or straight) called "marriage" which is a religio-cultural ceremony before the government decided to dabble in it. It's there in the history books: civil unions (common law) always were secular, marriage always was religious ceremony whether the state ran the church or not.

While we're at it, we should fight for universal gov't mandated 401-k plans. Oh, wait, the Hillary campaign and Howard Paulson with their health and treasury agendas already wants that.