Marriage, Part II

I am also having difficulty understanding why so many religious groups are anxious to interfere with an institution - civil marriage - which many of them have little part in. Notably in the Catholic Church and among my good neighbors, the Mormons, marriage has sacramental characteristics. Simply going to the county court and getting married is often insufficient; at least in the Catholic Church, a couple is expected to receive the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, which is something that no justice of the peace can confer.

If Britney Spears, Liz Taylor, or Michael Jackson can get civil marriages, is there really a good reason why Robert and I can't? What, exactly, are so many religious groups defending given the number of civil or common-law marriages that occur that they wouldn't sanction? Besides, in Utah, first cousins can marry under special circumstances.

A potential way out of the marriage controversy would be to no longer allow religious ministers the right to marry on behalf of the state. Japan does this: everyone who wants to get legally married must do so in front of a judge. If a couple wishes a religious ceremony, they may participate in one seperately. This way, civil and ecclesiastical marriages would be totally seperate, and religions would be free to confer marriages in accordance with their rules, without feeling compromised by the law.

Another possibility is to reclassify civil marriages as civil unions. Ministers would still have the right to confer marriages, so long as they were legal and conformed to the religion's moral dogma. But anyone who wished to get married in front of a judge would instead receive a civil union.

Think I'm crazy? Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the outgoing Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, had this to say about the marriage debate:

It seems to me that we really have to continue to define marriage as we've defined marriage for thousands of years as a union between a man and a woman.

Now, I think the legislation as it is proposed would not throw out the possibility of a civil union. And I think we can -- we can live with that if this is what -- if this is what the Constitution will provide for.

-Cardinal McCarrick in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, 7 June 2006