(Posted earlier this evening at Street Prophets)
Ok, so there's this fundamentalist website that I read a couple of times a week, to see what they're up to mostly. Here. I usually find something to be really irritated about. Tonight was no exception.
So there's an article up by Brannon Howse, "Is Marriage a Religious or Civil Law Institution?" And here. Of course he says it's both, and that the Church (his version, of course) should hang on for dear life OR OUR SOCIETY WILL COME TO AN END!!!!!
Yeah.
So this is what I posted in the 'feedback' section:
You are certainly welcome to your opinion as to what your Bible says about marriage, and what marriage may mean to you today. But you are not entitled to distort the facts about marriage in history.
Marriage is and has always been an economic arrangement between families. Clerical involvement became part of it in the 12th century (when it became a Sacrament), but was not mandatory until later- there are still examples in case law from the 15th century where marriages held in private (in secret even) with no officiant. Marriages were arranged for the purpose of consolidating lands, merging or protecting business interests, and for the upper nobility, dynastic concerns. Affection or sentiment had very little place in the selection of a spouse in the Western world until well into the 19th century. (And this is still true in most of the world.) In the days of the Founders, this was still very true. The assertion that "The founders saw marriage as an institution where people were self-governed in choosing who they married instead of arranged marriages as in the Old Country" cannot be supported by the historical record.
A partnership between government and the Church insofar as marriage is concerned existed for several hundred years, worked (as much as it did) only because there was only one Church at the time. We now live in a pluralistic society where there are many faiths, and indeed many citizens espouse no particular faith at all.
Marriage, as the civil entity, grants certain legal benefits that are not with the church's purview to give. Because these are secular, legal benefits, the opportunity to marry must be available to all, as a matter of equal protection. If the church insists on restricting marriage to only those it chooses, then it is interfering with that legal benefit.
Marriage began as a solely secular entity. It is time to return to that state. A civil partnership that is open to all consenting adults, that grants the legal benefits we now ascribe to marriage, should be available through the state. If the church wishes to offer a religious ceremony, it may do so- and with no legal benefit attached, it would be free to be as free or as restrictive with that ceremony as it wishes.
If the church wants to emphasize the spiritual nature of marriage, it should get out of the business of granting secular benefits. It really can't be done both ways, and that is why we're having this issue today.
So am I completely outta line? Or just wasting my time with those goombahs?