MARRIAGE IN POST-LAWRENCE v. TEXAS AMERICA

I love it when my favorite bloggers play right into my hands. Dean Esmay, one of my many Blogfathers, is commenting on changing definitions of marriage and notes:

Bill Kristol recently suggested that within a few years, in America, it’s quite possible that the legal idea of “marriage” will become nothing but a contractual one, with only the private sphere (church and family) defining anything else about it. Would that be a bad thing? I think not, and I imagine it’s where the Brits are probably headed too.

A story: Way back a long time ago (like about six years), whilst I was a mere seminary student, a church I worked at faced a dilemma. We had two active, faithful Christians who had fallen in love with each other. One was afflicted with a chronic disabling disease, the exact name of which I cannot remember, but it isn’t important anyway. The couple, being good Christians, wanted to marry, but the ill partner was dependent upon Medicaid. If they were legally married, the partner (I can’t even remember if it was the man or the woman) would have lost Medicaid eligibility, and there was no way the couple could afford to pay for the necessary care out of pocket.

My boss, the pastor of that church, put it to them plainly: “No problem. You can get married, and we just won’t tell anyone.” (This was taking place in a state which did not recognize common-law marriage, in case you’re wondering.) He asked me if I would be willing to participate in the ceremony.

I told him no.

Why? The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had no good answer for that question (one which my boss never asked, but which I kept asking myself over the next few years). I figured I could get into Big Trouble if I’d participated in an illegal wedding. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there’s something fundamentally weird about how we treat marriage in this country.

Marriage is the only truly significant interface of church and state in America. I know many of you are used to thinking of the Bush administration as an admixture of church and state, but hear me out. It’s the only religious ceremony wherein the names of the participants are reported to the government. It’s the only function of the government which clergypersons can carry out–I can’t inspect the title to your house or annex your property for a new freeway, but I can certify that another person has a right to 50% of your worldly goods. And it’s the only time the government can decide who is or is not fit to be considered a proper spiritual leader–at least in those areas where the government still wants to see a minister’s credentials before allowing them to solemnize marriages, and I can tell you those areas are few and far between.

At any rate, I’ve had much cause to think about the relationship of religious and societal concepts of marriage in the ensuing years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that, all in all, separation of church and state is a wonderful idea. Thinking back to my test case from earlier on, the couple would have been punished (in effect) for freely practicing their religion, had the government been notified that a ceremony took place.

You can argue that the couple was defrauding the government by concealing their marriage, and you’d have a point. In fact, that’s exactly why I refused to participate in the ceremony. But, without the necessary health care, the ill partner would have died in a matter of months. We may say “in sickness and in health, until death do us part,” but is ti really fair to, in essence, sentence someone to a slow, lingering death simply because they want to get married? (Yes, yes, I know: some of you will argue that, in fact, all marriages are a form of slow, lingering death.)

On the flip side, if you’re divorced seven times over and you want to get married to somebody whose last name you do not know whom you just met four days ago at a bingo hall, the only thing the state cares about is whether or not you have $35 and a valid ID. But don’t come asking me to do the ceremony.

In the long run, I think expanded forms of domestic partnership are all but inevitable in the United States. As homosexuality has become a more visible part of our culture, people can see for themselves that homosexuals, while not exactly like heterosexuals, are not all serially promiscuous atheistic child-molesters. And that’s acceptable to me. After all, people can already get married without my imprimatur. Likewise, I don’t think it’s any of the government’s business who does or does not participate in any kind of religious ceremony–that’s a matter which is between an individual’s conscience and God.

The “slippery slope” fallacy has been trotted out numerous times since last Thursday, with the usual suspects asserting that striking down sodomy laws will eventually lead to Americans being forced to accept domestic partnerships between two men, five women, and a small herd of pygmy goats. Listen: Just because a line is difficult to draw doesn’t mean it is impossible to draw. Society already condones marriages I wouldn’t ever countenance, like my seven-times-divorced bingo player, couples where one partner already knows firsthand that their partner is a domestic abuser, semi-literate, overrated models marrying octogenerian oil executives, etc., etc. I won’t do any of those weddings–and I wouldn’t do a gay wedding, either, since I can’t find any Biblical precedent for doing so. But if society chooses to grant that right, it’s free to do so. After all, it’s granted me the right to spend my life in pursuit of a religion whcih isn’t terribly popular with a lot of people. It would be unseemly of me to use that same religion as a weapon to deny others of what may well be their civil rights.