Homosexual Marriage; A Recommendation for Wider Separation of Church & State

In today’s WaPo, William Raspberry applies an idea from C.S. Lewis. In discussing state approved divorce suggested that "There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not." Raspberry applies this idea to the question of homosexual marriage.

I’ve wondered how this might work.

When my nephews got married in Venezuela they had to do it twice. Neither the state, nor the church, recognizes the power of the other. If the church did this it would be saying, in effect, to the state: "you can do what you want for legal purposes. When our members come to us, we will require that their marriages be recognized by our own norms."

I’m not at all sure how this would work in practice. What, for example would a pastor do, when a couple who has a state-approved marriage register in a parish? Would the Catholic Church recognize marriages of baptized Christians from other churches? What happens when children of state approved marriages are enrolled in first communion class?

Even with all those questions, it seems to me to be preferable than involving the institutional church in a half decade of ugly controversy over a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

It certainly would change the dynamics of proposing marriage. If he says “will you marry me” and she answers “in the state or in the church?”, I wonder what would happen.

Comments, please

Comments

[Herb Ely]

I guess it will depend on the sequence. If the state declares that marraige can take place between two people of the same gender, the church should say that it no longer recognizes marriages "created" by the state. The church should then require that all couples registering in a parish, or joining the church through the RCIA, have their marriages celebrated sacramentally - unless. of course they were married in another chruch. This would draw a clear line. I'm suggesting that the church take this position now.

[ELC]

All right! Let homosexuals "marry" by emptying marriage of meaning in society! Yeah! That makes great sense! Of course, the very idea implicitly admits how important marriage is, and that pretending to allow homosexuals to "marry" is really a sham.

[David Ely]

Right, which is why the terms should be separated. Some people don't want gays to get married because they think of marriage along the lines of how their church defines it. That's their prerogative, but that shouldn't prevent them from getting married. Instead, if you separate the terms, then legal unions won't interfere with the so-called sanctity of marriage. Legal unions (both hetero- and homo-) would allow committed couples equal rights under the law, while churches can decide for themselves how to define marriage with respect to their own sacraments.

[Herb Ely]

David, Thanks. From a secular point of view it is just a matter of semantics. From a sacramental point view, it is much more.

[David Ely]

It's sad that a matter of semantics has meant that loving, committed couples can't visit one another on their deathbeds.

I'm all for the complete seperation idea. I also think that "marriage" should be eliminated as a legal term, replaced by "civil union" to descibe *all* legal unions. The word "marriage" could be retained by the churches and defined however they prefer. Leave it up to each church to decide what to recognize and how they want to do that.

The only stake the government needs to have in civil unions is in promoting family-raising through tax breaks, codifying a relationship for insurance companies and hospitals to use, and marking its start and end relationship (whether by divorce or death) for property and custody disputes (and maybe a few other reasons I've overlooked).