Conflicts over Marriage

I had a conversation with someone the other day and it got me thinking.

I mentioned in passing that in Germany, where I had lived many years and married my wife, there are two weddings - a state wedding, which must come first, and then, if you opt for it, a church ceremony. I mentioned that I thought this was marvellous - separation of church and state!

It seems so reasonable to me, and it seemed to me to, in one stroke solve all people's difficulties with the "immorality" of gay marriage - the state can marry who it wants to, the church can marry who it wants to, and neither are required to recognize the other's marriages!

The person I was speaking with was not of the same opinion. His contention was that if you were going to do that then the state should get out of the marriage business entirely anyway because, "it's was God's idea first." Then he left.

In retrospect as I continued to think on it, at first this seemed a ludicrous assertion - trying to show evidence that the state essentially copied "God's idea" is problematic to say the least - look at copyright infringement lawsuits, they're so complex and hairy and you're just trying to show which person had an idea first. Bring a supernatural all powerful all knowing being into it and there are just problems. At the very least, I thought, I could have argued that the idea was arrived at independantly by others - Ancient China, the Druids of western europe, and the marriages of other societies existing together with the ancient Isrealites - Pharonic Egypt, Canaanites and others had marriage and/or marriage like concepts. The state has a vested interest in the continuation of the state and in the interworkings of the individuals that make it up. Like Liebnitz inventing Calculus independantly from other people, besides God, could create a similar institution independantly.

Then I realized that this was exactly the wrong approach. We were speaking different philosophical languages and it didn't matter what I said, he would not have understood it. It would be like trying to program a computer in English - unless there's a English to Machine code compiler I don't know about, no matter how cool your "program" is, it isn't going to work because the computer doesn't understand.

So then I stopped and thought about it again. Now I think I have a better idea. I think I'll let him be right.

He's right, marriage is God's idea and, to further the idea of separation of church and state, the state should not deal with marriage at all. It will not be asked for or cared about in census reports or tax forms any more than a person having had First Communion or a Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah is asked. Nor will it have any legal standing in any other sense. Husband-Wife communication will no longer be priviledged communication, marriage has no effect on the distribution of personal effects should a person die without a will. Currently marriage is discriminatory. It provides special rights and priviledges to some people, and denys them to others. You could even go so far as to say it makes "all people equal, but somepeople are more equal than others" to paraphrase George Orwell. I think that for a political institution discrimination of this sort is wrong. If people are opposed to removing discrimination from the political aspect of marriage in spite of allowing individual religious institutions to keep discriminating as they think they must then the only other ethical solution, politically speaking, is to completely remove marriage as a political/governmental institution and let it remain in existance as a purely religious ceremony.

This has the additional benefits. Religious people claim that marriage is being destroyed, not only because of gay marriage, but because of the ease with with divorces seem to be able to be obtained. Eliminating marriage as a consideration in the political sphere means to get a divorce you'd have to go back to the church, and they could deal with that as they choose.

It might also reduce some of the complexity of government as tax and other governmental forms would no longer require any consideration of marriage. Of course this would make getting a green card for a foreign spouse, like mine, much harder... but it would also mean the INS wouldn't have to wonder if it was a green card marriage.

Just a thought as I sit here trying to solve the world's problems and dreaming of better tomorrows.