Marriage - secular or religious

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Marriage is an institution, with it's origin in Religion, endorsed by societies where homosexuality was a criminal offence. A Wedding is a Ceremony to enter into the institution of Marriage. And Weddings can happen almost anywhere. Because it is so sacred, the emotion CANNOT be seperated fromt he term.

Actually forgetting the word wedding, but it also is connected tot he same tradition, so both are clamed as sacred. For those bound under civil authority, New terms for both would be required.

Just to act contrary to them. I would think that of any profession, I would expect Judges to be paragons of integrity.

Bad example. Officiating a Murder or rape trial is the exact opposite of condoning the crime, rather ensuring the process of a fair trial. Officiating any criminal trial is about making sure that the defendant's guilt or innocence is fairly determined.

You are signing a paper with your name and authority telling two homosexuals that they are legally and lawfully bound. If the Judge is personally offended by the notion, why should he be forced to sacrifice his integrity to do this?

Nice, but the emotionally charged nature of Marriage was there long before the people responsible for this online dictionary changed the word to suit their agenda...

They aren't shirking anything. They are simply taking cases that don't demand that they violate their moral convistions. And the Justice system might not be so badly overloaded if the activist judges would stick to enforcing the law instead of trying to re-write it...

They are signing their name to a paper legitimizing their union.

Because the contract legitimizes a lifestyle that is morally objectionable.

Despite the fact that the Constitution guarantees them the right to such accommodation? Besides, try firing one when they don't get that accommodation. You now have one less judge and one more case (the Judge would certainly sue for wrongful dismissal if he got screwed like that).on the docket. That increases the backlog of cases, thus increasing overload on the court system...

 

For what hopefully will be the last time, MARRIAGES PERFORMED AT COURTHOUSES ARE NEITHER RELIGIOUS NOR SACRED. If you feel there is something religious or sacred about marriage, you go to a church, temple, synogogue, mosque or some other place of worship. You don't go to a courthouse. If we were to apply your definition to everyone, there would be tens of thousands of married heterosexual couples out there that wouldn't really be married, because they did not consider their marriage religious or sacred. It's not all about you and your bible thumping friends Gnarff. Why is it so hard to accept that not everyone believes what you believe?

It's hopeless. Evidently if one person speaks secular English, and the other person speaks religious English, they cannot effectively communicate with each other. I don't see how signing the paper is causing them to act contrary to their beliefs. We are not making the judge marry someone of the same sex! Now *that* would be making him act contrary to his beliefs.

I'm way to lazy to look up and read through Canada's Constitution, so I'll take you at your word that the Canadian Constitution guarantees that right. There is no such right in the U.S. Constitution though. We can actually fire people for not doing their jobs.

 

Aldeth, sorry, but to many people it is, regardless of your opinion. Remember, what is sacred and religious is a matter of opinion and perspective.

Actually, it's called the First Amendment. You know, Freedom of Religion? Considering the bizzare shapes it's been forced into in the past, this one would be a piece of cake.

 

Aldeth, i'm not very relgious at all but i understand & AGREE with what gnarf is saying. If i wanted a Civil Marriage i would have went to the courthouse. I was married(both times) in a church because that was what the wife(s) wanted. It was important to them so i didn't feel at all bad that i didn't agree with her beliefs or feel hypocritical about being part of a ceremony i didn't find sacred.

I just don't see why it is so hard to understand where gnarf & the other religious types here on the board are coming from.
I also think that gnarf has brought up an excellent point that by disallowing polygamist marriages the government has set the precedent that marraige is 1 man & 1 woman.

If you are going to argue that 2 men or 2 women can be married than it is just as right for a man to marry 2(or more) women. Or for 2(or more) men & 1 woman to be married.
Almost everyone on this board has probably felt they were in love more than once in their lifetime.
So if a person happens to feel they are in love with 2 women at once why shouldn't they be allowed to marry both of them if the 2 girls down the street can be?

 

NOG,

Freedom of religion has been repeatedly interpreted by the Supreme Court (when it was comprised of both liberal and conservative justices) to not only allow people to practice their religion as they see fit, but to also disallow the government from getting involved in religion or favoring one religion over another. This also applies to government buildings... like courthouses. The first amendment actually prohibits a marriage performed at a courthouse to be religious in nature, so sorry, it's not religious, regardless of your opinion. Still, I commend your attempt to re-interpret the First Amendment in a way no SC justice ever has - and then the ironic statement of saying it's a "matter of opinion and perspective" - yes I suppose it would have to be to come to such a conclusion.

OK, that was perhaps a bit unnecessarily sarcastic (although no more so than your post) so perhaps another example would work here. Say you're a Mormon like Gnarff, and for religious reasons you chose not to smoke or drink alcohol. If you got a job at a convenience store, I don't think you could refuse to sell a customer a pack of cigarettes for religious reasons (provided the customer was at least 18 years of age) and expect your employment to continue there for long. Freedom of religion applies to your beliefs, but it doesn't mean you can curtail the activities of others who do not share your beliefs. In that same light, you COULD refuse to sell a 17 year old a pack of cigarettes, because that would be illegal.

I look at the judge in the same way. So long as the two people meet the legal requirements for getting married as set forth in the state's law, the judge should perform the ceremony. If they do not meet the requirements (like if they are under 18 without parental consent, or if a state does not allow same sex marriages) then the judge should refuse to perform the ceremony. So if you live in a state that allows same sex marriages or civil unions, yes, I think by refusing the judge is not doing his job. Keep in mind that currently only 4 states allows same sex marriage or civil unions, and 46 do not, so this isn't really a problem in too many places. (And I will repeat that the mere fact no judge has used freedom of religion to refuse to perform same sex marriages indicates to me that it likely isn't a valid defense, because one would think judges have a pretty good grasp of the law.)

Martaug,

My premise from the begining has been that the state law should govern who can get married in a courthouse, and religious belief should govern who can get married in a church. That's the part that I can't see where gnarff and others are coming from. I'm certainly not saying a Mormon priest should be required to preside over a same sex marriage. I'm Catholic and there's all sorts of rules for who can and cannot get married in a Catholic Church. Same sex marriages or not allowed. If one of those getting married is divorced, a Catholic priest also won't marry you (there's an example of freedom of religion over-riding the law, as it is legal for a divorcee such as yourself to remarry). A Catholic priest will also refuse to marry a heterosexual, never previously married couple if neither of them are Catholic.

And I'm FINE with all that. Freedom of religion has to cut both ways. If you want to keep the government out of your church, you should also want to keep your church out of government. (As an aside, I don't think Gnarff's comparison of polygamy really works. Afterall, the Mormons weren't forced to give up polygamy - their prophet at the time said he had a revalation from God that said they should give it up. They gave up polygamy because it was God's will.)

 

Very well stated Aldeth.

Good one. The Mormon's may not buy this, but the Utah territory wanted statehood. The US government would not allow this to occur so long as the Mormons practiced polygamy -- it just so happened the Mormon prophet received divine revelation that polygamy should end at a time the territory was petitioning (again) for statehood. It's truly amazing how convenient revelation can be at times.

 

Aldeth, the State doesn't define what is religious in anything other than a legal perspective. When it comes to something like freedom of religion, you enter a murky territory where legal definitions and personal views blend. This is why so many cases have banned, and then reversed, and back and forth, the 10 Commandments being allowed in courthouses. Are they religious? Kinda. Are they something else? To many. Is it allowable? Depends on the judge.

As for the conveniencee store, if it were state owned, the State would have to accomidate. The particular overseer may look for any legal excuse to fire them after that, but they couldn't be fired for refusing on legal grounds. Short of that, though, 7-11 isn't state owned, so the 1st Amendment doesn't apply

 

Speraking of marriage, a while back someone posted a link to an article on why men today are choosing not to get married - -can someone please re-post it?

 

So many cases? I can recall one, in the back woods of Alabama, in the middle of the Bible Belt. One example does not indicate, at least to me, that there is something controversial about the First Amendment. It's settled law. To diverge slightly, I find it rather ironic that one of the Ten Commandments prohibits the worship of false gods and idols, and yet it's OK to make a big ass idol of the Ten Commandments and display it prominently. High comedy.

I kind of doubt that, and I'll to illustate by means of another example. In many states liquor stores ARE state owned. (If you only sell beer, generally it can be privately owned, but not if you sell the hard stuff.) In fact, it is common to refer to them as "state stores". How exactly would the state accomodate someone who refuses to sell liquor for religious reasons, when the only item sold in the store is liquor? It's fine to make reasonable accomodations for people, but if they are incapable of meeting the job requirements, tough luck.

The more I think about it, I can see why you and others get upset about things like this. If I may be so bold, I will assert that you are upset because this is a battle you are losing. Society is becoming more and more secular with every passing year. Twenty years ago, two people of the same sex marrying was unthinkable - not it's legal in 4 states. Twenty more years from now there will likely be few, if any, remaining states that don't allow same sex unions. There may even be a Constitutional Amendment that says a state cannot prevent any two consenting adults from getting married. Perhaps the only difference between us is I do not have a problem changing with society.

I will leave you with this - there is some truth in comedy. I once heard someone joke that there's a reason why the Amendments are set in a certain order. If the government tries to take away any of the rights granted by the 1st Amendment, then you need look no further than the 2nd Amendment as a means of addressing your problems with the first.

 

If I may be so bold...bingo.

 

AFI: For what I am not naive enough to think will be the last time: IF IT'S NOT MEANT TO BE SACRED, THEN USE ANOTHER WORD. If this is not about spirituality, as some of you claim, but rather about property rights, spousal benefits, and inheiritance laws. Those are civil concerns, and the language should reflect that. It's that refusal to do that that leads me to be skeptical about the motives of the secular side of the debate.

AS for secular versus religious, secular philosophy rejects religion by refusing to admit that anything is sacred. This is a direct contradiction to religion which establishes the sacred. As long as secularism insists on that stance, those who buy into it will continue to butt heads with teh religious lot. Why is forcing secularism on other people any better than someone forcing their religion on them? To me, that's hypocritical...

By signing off on a gay marriage, a Judge is approving the relationship. You are forcing them to approve something they cannot approve of.

So if Freedom of Religion is meant to keep government from interference in religious matters, then why are we even having this arguement? That's right, because the government did infact interfere. AS long as the faithful were not offended by what the government did, we allowed it. Now the Government wants to do something truly reprehensible, and we lose the right to oppose this? Sorry, not buying it.

My Grandfather served as a Branch President in the 1960's. He also supported his family as a tobacco farmer. His job did not affect his personal worthiness, because he was not the one smoking the cigarettes. Two of my cousins financed their missionary efforts by working on Tobacco farms, and this was not a problem. The difference here is that a Mormon judge presented with a Gay couple is aasked to sign a paper stating that they are married--in direct contradiction to the Proclamation on the Family, drafted in 1995 by the First presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, and considered doctrine. This act may compromise their personal worthiness, and may even carry more severe consequences...

AS to the Mormons abandoning polygamy, one thing that even T2Bruno is neglecting to mention is this: There was a revelation printed following the Official Declaration where Polygamy is discontinued where the consequences of not doing so were shown to the Prophet. It showed all the priesthood authority imprisoned and all the church's lands confiscated by the government. The decision was then given to the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, who voted unanimously to give in to the demands of the Federal Government for the good of the members. This is not a "convenient revelation", but rather a religion ammending its doctrine under duress from the state who would abandon their founding principles to bring them to heel.

If the state would abandon its principles to suppress one minorty, then they have no obligation to bend over backwards to accommodate another minority. In fact, to grant gays the right to marry is nothing but an admission of bigotry by the government.

Secularism, when left unchecked, is no different than a state ruled by one particular religion. Assume for a moment that suddenly the US became a Mormon Theocracy. Suddenly there was a ban on Coffee, Tea, Alcohol and Tobacco, and stiffer Drug laws to enforce this. In addition to the taxes you pay to run the country (admittedly less corrupt, and debt is actively reduced), you now had to pay 10% of your gross to the church, how many of you would be pissed off? Suppose no businesses could operate on Sunday. No convenience stores, no gas stations, no restaurants, and no sports games. Only Spiritually uplifting programming was admissible on Media outlets in the nation from midnight to midnight. I'll come tright out and say that that is what the first ammentment is trying to avoid (and the Mormons as a church wouldn't try that either as it is forbidden in doctrine). Just because Secularism does not have a God in the traditional sense, it is not much different from religion...

 

If I may be so bold gnarff, BINGO.

 

Aldeth, I've heard of several more cases, one in California, but I can't recall details atm.

As for the liquor store, the problem is precisely that there are no accomidations to make, not unless they want to run the books.

Also, Aldeth, you're theory on my problem seems to forget that I don't want to ban gay marriage. Although, you're right that our government seems to be gradually embracing secular humanism, which I find disgusting.

 

Read Wittgenstein and see if you think a word is such a little thing...

Dig even deeper and see what you come up with?

But by redifining marriage, isn't that what you're saying they have already done? These activists go out of their way to change a definition to suit their purposes. I would believe that if you went back further than 1983, you'd see Man and Woman in the definition of marriage...

If it's just a contract, then it should be named different than a religious ordinance.

Like making sure that it is obvious that this is just a contract, not to be mistaken for a religious rite? By clarifying the wording to reflect the civil nature of the contract, this is made clear. It maked it simply about worldly concerns as opposed to spiritual.

Misrepresenting a contract as a religious ordinance? By legally binding two people in an abominable lifestyle?

Yet again, you are not listening to me. The Judge in question cannot, on clean conscience, be involved with this. To many, the government's outright approval of this abominable practice is tantamount to blasphemy.

Freedom of Religion? The right to refuse anything that compromises your Religious values is guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the First ammendment to the US Constitution. If the Judicial Branch will discard the Constitution whenit suits them, how can they be trusted to interpret the most important document in a nation's legal structure?

If that extra judge was already available, why is he not on the bench already?

Find a dictionary older than 1983 and see what it says. In fact, look at the actual word marriage, and see if they don't specify Male and Female. I'm not buying that for a second...

 

And round and round we go, Gnarff you and the people bothering to argue with you have repeated the same argument quite a few times now. Now I of course think you are completely out there but if you haven't budged now I doubt you will and I doubt you will be able to convince people to your point of you that aren't already against same sex marriage.

I do find it a bit funny that oyu have no problem with calling all kinds of "marriages" marriage whether they be secular, wiccan, satanistic, christian, hindu or whatever as long as it is between a male and a female. I am wondering, what is your view about people who have undergone sex change marriaging? Would it be ok if they married the opposite of what they are after the surgery or the opposite of what they were before?

 

I would accept that. The person who has undergone the transformation now identifies themselves as a member of their new gender. I would hope that they would be honest about their operation with their prospective partner.

Because part of this debate goes back to a precident set in 1878 where a judge upheld the definition of Marriage.

In this case, it's gay rights activists. To suit their desires, they would change the word to reflect what they want.

All well and good if we were talking about contracts. Marriage is more than just a contract. To reduce it as such is insensitive to those who believe in any higher power that has santified it. Marriage is a religious ordinance. The contract you refer to is a framework drafted by a secluar government to regulate this ordinance. It is my belief that this framework could be applied to secular or other non-religious unions under a different name. All I ask, and for some reason this is hard for others to accept, is that the language used to frame it is different between Religious and Secluar.

Then take off the blinders of secularism. To restrict yourself to a view that anything religious must be reduced to legal terms shows that you have no interest in reaching an understanding. The blinders of Secularism hide from you the spiritual connotations of Marriage. That is why if all you want is a contract the language should reflect that. Using a different term does make that difference.

Calling it a marriage when you have made it clear that what they are doing is "just signing a contract". Marriage is more than just a contract. It is a covenent, a spiritual equivalent to a contract.

So you admit my point? Marriage is the binding of two willing people of opposite genders by someone with the authroity to do so. In your case, a civil marriage the authority is the Judge that officiates the binding of the couple brought before him. His name and authority are applied to this. To force him to affix his name to something abominable to his religious beliefs is nothing but an act of bigotry.

If all you want is a contract, then remove the word marriage, apply a term that describes, in SECULAR terms, what they are trying to do, and leave any implication of anything sacred or sexual out of the arrangement. If these conditions are met, then the Judge could sign off on the CONTRACT without violating his religious beliefs. The problem is solved...

Your arguements are no better.

And what muzzle would then apply to the secularists? It checks a religious organization, but where is the balance to go with it?

If the judge was just sitting there with his thumb up his ass waiting for the gay couple to go away, then that's a problem, and he should be diciplined, perhaps fired. If he's working on other cases while a collegue who does not share those convictions officiates the contract that offends him, then the only problem I see is that someone wants to fire him for not spewing the same secularist nonsense that they want him to. Now where does the First Ammendment come in?

Not Infinite, but if the system is backlogged as you say, then why not add a few QUALIFIED judges to help clear that backlog? It would also speed up due process. I'm not saying take Joe Schmoe off the street. I'm only calling for a relatively small increase to the budget, not some whopping amount.

 

Are you serious? You expect BTA to have ready access to a 130-year old dictionary? BTA has shown a definition of contract that includes marriage is at least 25 years old. Asking him to find a 130-year old source is unreasonable. In fact, if that is what is required to make YOUR point, the YOU should be the one doing the looking.

Really? I was under the impression that not only did you want it to be a different name, but the right of judges to refuse to administer it? So you would perfectly fine with a Mormon judge presiding over the civil union of two gay men?

What are you talking about? I have said - repeatedly - that marriages performed in churches are religious and sacred in nature. These "secular humanists" aren't going to storm your church one night and take your Jesus away. Marriages performed in courthouses (or civil unions if you prefer that term) are not religious. If the people being married wanted a religious rite sanctified by some higher power, why in the world would they come to a courthouse and not go to a church?

Only when it is performed by a religious authority. In fact, how would a judge have the authority to perform a religious ceremony that would be recognized by any church? I know the Catholic Church wouldn't look at a wedding performed in a courthouse to be religious by Catholic standards. This would be true even if the two people getting married met all the necessary criteria to be married in a Catholic Church. To Catholics, the thing that makes marriage a sacrament and not just a contract is that the ceremony is performed in a CHURCH and blessed by a PRIEST.

You have to help me out with this one. You are correct in saying that these secularists would be saying that no religious ceremonies would be performed in a courthouse. And that civil unions (or whatever other non-offensive religious word you want to use) performed in a courthouse would not be sacred, religious, whatever. But these secularists are saying religous ceremonies belong in the church, while secular ceremonies belong in the courthouse. There appears to be a balance here.

Where would the First Amendment even apply? We are not dealing with a religious issue.

@NOG,

I'm sorry if I offended you with my post. After re-reading it, I can easily see how you would have thought I was saying you, specifically, were losing the arguement with me. That was not my intent. I was actually using the plural you. To make my statement more clearly, allow me this second chance: Those who are religious are losing ground in society to a growing wave of secularism. As society moves in this direction, we are electing government officials to represent us who share this vision. Many people who have deep-rooted religious beliefs, have a problem - perhaps even a fear - of what will happen if this continues.

However, I don't know of any secularist who has a problem with the existence of churches, or of people going to church and living their lives according to a religious ethos (whether that ethos is Christian, Hindu or whatever). That having been said, I'm sure there are people like this out there. I regard them as complete nutjobs, and just as out of line as people trying to force religion down people's throat.

I'm certainly not what you would describe as a militant secularist. In fact, I'm very much a live and let live kind of person when it comes to religion. I and most secularists are willing to let anyone believe whatever they want, and consider whatever ritual that occurs within their place of worship to be sacred. It's only when it expands into government (like a courthouse) that the problem comes in.

 

Ok, I don't know what you consider 'knowing' a person, but we have had several people on these boards that advocated the complete elimination, by government mandate if necessary, of all organized religion.

So what exactly is your problem with letting a judge hand a gay marriage case over to another judge? You talk like this is a huge dereliction of duty, but it's about a 5-minute break from a caseload of murders, rapes, and armed robberies. If anything, these guys are volunteering to give up a virtual vacation (short-lived though it may be). On the legality side, if vegans can force the gov't to provide a vegan-friendly lunch option, these judges should be able to preserve their ethics. And no matter what you say, personally validating their contract is one means of approving it.