www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Gay Marriage Debate Musings

I don't think my wife would be pleased with this solution.

I think the real problem is that the Church has traditionally couched her teachings in autocratic language that essentially says, "this is the truth--this is what you must believe," rather than saying something like, "this is what we believe, and we believe it with joy because it is what we received from Christ." The latter approach is inherently appealing, while the former is inherently repugnant. People whose belief is based largely on coercion will change their belief all too readily when given an excuse to do so.


In this case, though, I think the bishops' position is grounded on the premise that a majority of Americans are still oppose the idea of "gay marriage," but if we fail to take a vigorous stand against it now, that majority will soon lose the courage to continue the fight. (Just as most Americans opposed legalized abortion before Roe vs. Wade.)


We are called to be "the light of the world," which means that it is our job to enlighten others which, if we are successful, will ultimately lead to the changing of laws.


The real problem here is that we are dealing with an issue that can and will lead to the Church being persecuted. Yes, they could come up with a solution wherein Church weddings have no legal standing, but the fact is that people associate weddings with "church," and you can be sure that at some point there will be gays wanting to sue over their "right" to be married in the Catholic Church!


Peace,
Deacon Richard

All the better. The blood of martyrs and all that stuff--not that ours will be a very painful martyrdom. But somebody has to draw a line in the sand somewhere, and it might as well be us.


They should go ahead. It would make my day. The law can be twisted in many ways, but it's very difficult to invert it completely.

Ironically, by accepting the premise that Church should have a say in the matters of State, one will end up creating a relationship that will allow for the State to later dictate the norms of the Church.

Like I said, separating Church and State is for the benefit of the Church.

If you want to create a relationship between the two where one can pull the other, I don't want to hear complaints when the other eventually pulls back.

What I see all to often is the reverse intent: attempts to change the laws against popular sentiment, in order to lead to eventual enlightenment through enforcement. A prospect I find dubious and opposed to the example of Christ.

I think most of us agreed that the Church should simply get out of the business of being a bookkeeper for the state here, and the reasons are pretty compelling. As I see it, there is only one argument that I have heard against the idea that the Church should stop acting as an envoy of the state in doing marriage paperwork that has merit.

It is that there are lots of young (and not so young too) people who are nominally (basically non-practicing except for MAYBE going to Church on Christmas and Easter)Catholic or nominally Orthodox won't get sacramental marriages because they won't want to go to the expense of two services, one without paperwork.

I raised this with one priest I know when we discussing this issue and he said "well, from years of counselling couples, the majority of weddings I do aren't really sacramental. They just view me as a civil celebrant with a nice building". Thoughts?

As Eastern Christians, we share a theology of marriage which sees God as uniting the couple as one flesh. This is in opposition to Western marriage, in which the couple are the ordinary ministers of the sacrament who, in effect, marry each other before a priest (or deacon) who acts as witness on behalf of the Church. Because in our rites the presbyter is the ordinary minister of the sacrament, who unites the couple through the descent and action of the Holy Spirit, it is somewhat sacrilegious to unite in marriage people whose attachment to the Church is merely nominal. Such people would be better served by resorting to a civil ceremony than by pretending to agree with something they either reject or do not understand.

This case was made very compellingly by the Armenian theologian Vigen Guroian, in his essay "Let No Man Join Together: An Orthodox Christian View of a Beseiged Sacrament", Touchstone, Jan/Feb 2011. Like me, he advocates getting the Church out of the marriage licensing business. I have given my reasons here, but I also wrote about it for First Things [firstthings.com] in July 2010.

You must have contact with different Eastern Catholics and Orthodox than me, because in my experience the knowledge of the majority of Orthodox and EC youth about the deeper aspects of their faith is appalling (it's better in the less "liberal" jurisdictions such as ROCOR but still often not great). They might know how many bows to do before an icon and what to eat at different times of year, but ask them to explain what the incarnation is and you'll be in trouble. Let alone who the minister of the sacrament is in marriage. This would make the majority of their marriages "sacrilegious" by your argument,so better if we did not do them. I'm not willing to go that far; I think that the sacrament can give strength that appears in unexpected ways, and it be a shame if people did not get married in churches because of cost on top of going to a civil celebrant. That is the only aspect of removing the "marriage business" from the church that concerns me.

Stuart,

Have you studied the evolution of Marriage in non-Byzantine Traditions? I found your post quite informative, but I wonder if the same applies to the non-Imperial (Lesser Eastern) Churches, especially as far out as India.

One problem I foresee with civil and religious marriages being separated - could the state accuse one of being a polygamist if one marries in a religious ceremony then separates and marries another, etc? For example, in cases of religious conversion one spouse doesn't wish to convert, causing tension, separation, etc - could the State then decide for me if I am bound to pay alimony, etc to the estranged ex-spouse?

Another example - the church age minimum for marriage today is 16 for boys, 14 for girls; the State prohibits marriage for anyone under 18 without parental consent - could the church be accused of conspiring child abuse?

One more thought - what could the State do if I decided to marry someone civilly, male/female for financial reasons, but sacramentally to another?

Michael,

Those are interesting questions, and something that future courts may have to work out. I don't see any of those issues as insurmountable problems, however.

Stuart,

I might quibble with your characterization of marriage in the West and East over the centuries and a few other minor points, but by and large I think we seem to agree on what the Church's stance should be vis-a-vis state gay marriage in this country.

Now, my real gripe is that the Catholic hierarchy of this country continually impresses upon the faithful the idea that we absolutely must work against the legalization of gay marriage. But as I said, that is not a doctrine of the Church (i.e., that we must oppose legalization of gay marriage or its recognition as a right). The Church's teaching is that only two heterosexual people can marry, and that sex should only take place within the sacred confines of a marriage (something quite different).

As I said, I think this runs the risk of confusing a believer like me, who holds to the aforementioned view that the Church and state should just go their separate ways regarding marriage and that we need to stop fighting what in my mind seems like a pointless battle which will inevitably come back to bite the Church in its behind - and at a point when we'll desperately need whatever moral authority we can muster to stave off the depravity continuously infecting our society.

Alexis

I think the hierarchy should work against gay marriage, not for any overriding theological reason, but simply because gay marriage is bad for society as a whole. No society has ever recognized homosexual relationships as marriage, and for very good reasons, as I pointed out. Anything which undermines traditional marriage, in fact, is bad for society, which is why I am opposed to all alternatives, including "civil unions", as well as things which make it easy to terminate marriages, such as no fault divorce laws, and policies that explicitly or implicitly subsidize extramarital sex, such as welfare programs that give money to unwed mothers in proportion to how many bastard children they have. If I could, I would make it impossible for illegitimate children to inherit, and work to recreate the stigma of bastardy, because people don't respond to rational arguments, they respond only to economic and social suasion.

What about the harm that would be done to all these bastard children? They certainly are not guilty of the sins of their parents. I agree with you about that harm that has been done to society by various factors that erode traditional marriage, but I have no interest in stigmatizing children for the sins of their parents; neither do I think it just to limit inheritance to children born to parents who are married. I do not believe in punishing chilren for the sins of their parents.

What about the harm that is already being done to them by being raised in broken families? There's pain no matter which way you go, but the problem with the way we are going now is there is no ending. My way, it stops.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Stuart, but I assume you support small government and a free market? How does the state telling people who they are allowed to give their money to fit into this?

Well, first of all, what you're proposing won't happen, so, in a sense, it doesn't matter. However, I do appreciate your response, because it demonstrates that you're concern lies primarily from a desire to end the harm being done to individual children and to society by so many children being born outside of marriage.

I still see your position as fundamentally unjust. It is simply wrong to stigmatize a child for the sins of the parents.

There is a reason why the term "bastard" is so offensive--people realize the injustice suffered by so many for millenia simply because those given the label were the ones who happened to have been born out of wedlock. If we're going to assign second-class status to those born out of wedlock by forbidding them to inherit their parents' property and placing a severe social stigma on them due to behavior in which they had no choice whatsoever, then why wouldn't we take the same or even harsher actions towards the children of parents who have committed sins as serious or more serious than that of having a child out of wedlock? What should we do to the legitimate children of adulterers? What about the children of businessmen who are known by the community to be unethical? Are adultery and dishonest business practices not harmful to individuals and to society as a whole? Why not coerce those people into doing the right thing by punishing their children?