To the churches of America: Get out of the
civil marriage ceremony business!
My regrets for the length of this piece, but so much is at
stake and much needs be said. I originally wrote this to
The Weekly Standard after its 2006 article,
"Banned in Boston - The coming conflict between same-sex
marriage and religious liberty" by Maggie Gallagher,
05/15/2006, Volume 011, Issue 33. The magazine did not
publish or acknowledge my letter. And so, I offer it here.
In Maggie Gallagher’s engaging and informative article [alternate link] about
Catholic Charities of Boston in the wake of
Goodridge [Massachusetts Supreme Court],
neither she nor any of the legal beagles she
interviewed so much as mentioned the simplest solution
of all. Churches can simply restrict themselves
to performing the sacrament of marriage and forgo
acting as agents of the State (with a capital 'S' to
use Nock’s catch-all term) in certifying a couple’s
intentions. Then, those churches interested in
marrying same-sex couples but located in states that
only recognize male-female marriages can confer the
sacrament of marriage on any couple the church alone
approves, and likewise for churches that recognize
only male-female marriages in states where same-sex
civil unions are sanctioned. Never mind that
people, such as myself, who are not interested in the
government’s sanction of anything they do, can even
exchange conventional male-female vows in a
non-controversial church ceremony and save the fee
downtown.
If a church turns in its permit to certify the civil status
of a union, couples married in the church but seeking
government sanction as well can then go downtown, right
after the wedding or years later, pay the fees, repeat
their intentions before a state official if need be, and
submit to the State’s blessing at their convenience.
People do the opposite all the time: They save a trip to
the church alter and get their civil union, commonly called
a marriage, certified at the town office after a
religion-free ceremony at a banquet hall. Some even
show up at a church years later and ask for a church
ceremony, to make it right in the eyes of God. (And
some never bother with either ceremony. This is
tolerated more in today’s American culture than ever
before; we are collectively unperturbed by any arrangement
of co-habitation.)
In this country, perhaps more than in others, we have
adapted to a concept that a marriage is one thing and one
thing only, that it is the exclusive privilege of the State
to sanction, and that, as an option, a church can be called
upon to bless it. Gallagher and the experts she
interviewed do not seem able to shake this misconception,
and thus they predict endless debate and litigation.
I wish they had re-examined the common American concept of
marriage, which has been confused with the wedding ceremony
and all its trappings. Marriage is the union of two
people – perhaps even three or more if the state
becomes whimsical about it; a wedding is the ceremony
and party that result in a marriage.
As for Catholic Charities and the mess they’re in in
Boston, it only proves that no good deed goes
unpunished. In this country, a church that wants the
State to stay out of its affairs will stay out of the
government’s affairs. A church that engages in
commerce, as Marc Stern pointed out to Gallagher, invites
the State’s scrutiny and interference. So too for a
church that provides community services cooperatively or
under contract with a government agency.
Why, then, does any church assume the civil authority to
certify a marriage on the State's behalf? It may well
be rooted in the Middle Ages I suppose, but a joint
statement of intentions made in a civil hearing and an
exchange of vows in a sacramental ceremony are two distinct
things with two separate purposes. And, in spite of
what legislatures or courts may declare about the civil
certification of a union, if churches in the United States
would just stick to the sacrament and stay out of the civil
certification process, they could always be entirely free
to perform the sacrament of marriage, according to their
own rules and with couples they select and approve, without
asking the government’s permission to do so! People
who desire a religious blessing are free to marry in a
church and may decline to register the marriage with the
civil authorities. And any couple of any description
is free to decline Allah’s or God’s blessing and find a
civil authority willing to register their pledge (and
willing, later, to accept their revocation of it), which
the State is free to refer to as a marriage. It is
when the church functions as an agent of the State and
combines the civil arrangement with the religious sacrament
that the State has an interest in who is denied the State's
arrangement by being denied the sacrament.
A church may choose not to acknowledge a marriage certified
outside its rules, and the State may choose not to
recognize the marriage of a couple who have not paid the
registration fee and obtained, of all things, a
license. (Is that still required?)
A marriage not recognized by the State is no less a
marriage in the eyes of God. Americans seem more
concerned with the definition of marriage according to the
IRS than the definition according to sacrament. But,
in spite of what the Internal Revenue Code may say about
it, and I’m not going to waste time searching the Code,
even the IRS makes no demand of proof that a couple filing
a joint tax return produce a civil license to call
themselves married.
I submit that Catholic Charities of Boston, if unable to
reconcile the two definitions of marriage, must remain true
to its own traditional definition. The church’s
standards remain constant, or one can hope that they do,
while the State is free to write a law declaring the union
of peanut butter and jelly a marriage (requiring a permit),
if it wants to. Not realistic? What about the
union of three people, then? Is that so
far-fetched? And how would a church handle a
legislative or court definition like that? If some rich
socialite can will her estate to her terrier, what’s to
prevent the State from taking the next logical step and
permitting her to marry the dog first?
If Massachusetts loses the services of the Catholic
adoption agencies because the State has a better definition
of marriage, and thereby a better definition of family,
then let the State do a better job of handling
adoption. That is, let the people of Massachusetts,
who presumably are unperturbed by their elected
representatives’ fiat in allowing the court to correct the
church’s stodgy and now-erroneous definition, fork over the
revenue that the State will need to go it alone in adoption
services. The people of Massachusetts have said,
through their representatives, that they don’t need the
church’s help. Let them live with that decision.
It is plain that Massachusetts has, until now, consigned a
number of children to Catholic Charities to be placed
according to the church’s standards, or according to some
standards jointly agreed upon. (And once placed, the
children live under the parents’ standards.) The
State now chooses no longer to consign children to that
agency, (chooses in the sense that the agency felt
compelled to close), because the agency’s standards, which
are not changing with the whim of popular culture, were set
centuries before there was a fickle legislature in
Massachusetts with the voters’ assent to write
ever-changing law.
Perhaps the next step will be for the State (of
Massachusetts in this case) to follow up by visiting the
homes where children have been adopted and ensuring that
the adopting parents have the proper non-discrimination
notices posted, thus assuring that the children rescued
from Catholic Charities are subsequently protected from
Catholic influence at home.
This is not a tirade against the exchange of marriage vows
by homosexual couples, nor against adoption by homosexual
singles or couples. This is merely a defense of the
church’s right to remain unaffected by the State in its
practice and promotion of its beliefs, and likewise an
insistence that the State practice its shenanigans without
regard for the sensitivities of any church. In either
regard, that is as it should be.
Do I believe that homosexuals should not be parents?
No, I do not believe that. Do I believe that
homosexuals should endure State-sanctioned
persecution? No, nor any persecution. Do I
believe that the State, by prohibiting discrimination, will
put an end to persecution? No. And that is
where the State’s “solution” becomes insidious, for it is
the State’s apparent belief that, by prohibiting
discrimination and assiduously enforcing the prohibition,
unlawful discrimination will evaporate. In its zeal,
the State will neglect certain of its children, perhaps its
most vulnerable citizens. It’s a legislative victory
on behalf of those who feel stigmatized by society for
their sexual orientation. It’s a tragedy, perhaps,
for someone more vulnerable.
I do believe it is the duty of those whose activism brings
about anti-discrimination legislation to concede that the
law will not instantly change people’s perceptions or end
discrimination overnight; to concede also that, while
unlawful discrimination is not OK, not every corner of the
Commonwealth can adapt instantaneously – (just consider the
continuing and probably permanent exemptions from the ADA
now more than a decade after its enactment), and that there
just may be a population more vulnerable than those whose
grievance is redressed by a single act of a sacrosanct
State, in this case, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.
A vocal cadre of indignant activists, whatever cause they
advocate, and a complicit legislature or crusading court,
should always consider these realities. That’s not to
say that they should jointly search out all possible
affected parties and concoct grievances for them too, but
only that they should jointly acknowledge, and let the law
make allowance for, the fact that, as a society, we are
somewhat like a small crowd jammed into an elevator.
I shouldn’t be expected to accept having the point of your
umbrella jammed into my foot, but I should accept being
jostled a little. You should accept my
unintentionally offensive odor, but I should take care to
bathe daily so that there is at least a limit to how smelly
I can be from day to day. And when the door opens and
opportunity presents, we should put space, but not hatred,
between ourselves.
What’s missing here is tolerance, or, as Maggie Gallagher
quoted Marc Stern, “‘Live and let live’ is the only thing
around the world that works.” Isn’t it fair to say
that those protected by the anti-discrimination law, (the
entire body of those protected, as distinct from their most
vocal advocates), are chiefly seeking tolerance for what
sets them apart? Isn’t it also fair to say that those
thus protected owe their fellow citizens tolerance for
their various beliefs and standards as well, however
distasteful? That was briefly the objective in
America, when the law set out to prohibit harmful acts and
promote responsible action – before law became the monster
it now is, dedicated to the eradication of any notice of
obvious differences, the police state of political
correctness. It should shame the Massachusetts
legislature, and indeed, the people of Massachusetts who
permit that body to represent them, that the chief
beneficiaries of this new mess will be the lawyers, who
will likewise miss the point of tolerance, to the
considerable expense of the people of Massachusetts.
For a lawyer’s role is to prosecute or defend (or do the
research and write the briefs), not to rectify nor even to
propose what would make the law better.
A church’s only role in American society, in order to
assure First Amendment protection, is to preach its
doctrine and exhort its listeners to faith and right
action. Marc Stern agrees when he says, “Beyond
speech, nothing is safe.” People exhorted may then
individually put their faith into practice without too much
threat of State interference. But churches have
become big business in America, some, no doubt, with more
paid accountants than clergy. Concerted action, in
contrast with individual action, makes a church appear very
effective in its doctrine and charity, but it also calls
the church to submit, account, and justify. I do not
disapprove the State's legitimate scrutiny of many
churches' big-business affairs, since the Constitution
calls upon the federal government to regulate interstate
commerce.
For churches worried about whimsical,
peanut-butter-and-jelly definitions of marriage, why fret
whether federal or state legislators will one day grant
religion-based exemptions? This was a development
that Robin Wilson speculated on in Gallagher’s
article. Why not simply turn in your permits to
confer civil status to a marriage and restrict yourselves
to conducting religious ceremonies only? And offer
newlyweds an instruction brochure explaining, for whatever
town or municipality they’re in, how to register for a
State “marriage” as well, either before or after the church
blessing. For those few couples who still wait for
their wedding night, they'll have to choose whether the
celebration of the sacrament constitutes the wedding or the
hearing on their civil petition. That decision may depend
more on whether they’re interested in the IRS benefits,
probate, and insurance beneficiary status or in the
blessing of God.
Even if the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, or
in Massachusetts, gives up certifying the civil status of
marriages, the result of Goodridge for Catholic
Charities of Boston remains the same. Massachusetts
voters have put them out of the adoption placement
business. I'm glad I'm not a child-pawn in that
state's politics.
2006
©DamnYankee.com
