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

I don't think that two "ceremonies" would be necessary for a Christian to be married, assuming that the Church stops being a registering agency for the state.

When one applies for a marriage license, all that would be necessary would be to have the paperwork signed there before a witness--even a notary public in some states. Two years ago I was at a marriage in California where one does not even have to be a native to be a public officiant. In that state, any person can obtain a temporary license to officiate, even for one day and one marriage, and simply file the paperwork within 72 hours with the county in which the marriage took place. The whole ceremony took about three minutes in an outdoor pavilion. I attended another ceremony in Pennsylvania and the three parts of the ceremony were essentially the old Western rite minus a nuptual blessing: instruction, exchange of vows, and exchange of rings (an option).

It seems to me that it should be easy to satisfy the state's requriements and afterwards have a sacramental marriage. That would separate the requirements of the state and insulate the Church from being forced to perform a sacrament for those who wish to legalize other forms of union: civil, same-sex, polygamous, or whatever.

All the Church would have to do is to ask to see the proof that the legal requirements were met.

I also have known clergy who have officiated marriage ceremonies for older people who didn't want to lose their pensions by an official state-recorded marriage and who wanted to be "right in the sight of God." They've had to do this privately so that their right to officiate for others wouldn't be taken away.

I think Stuart is right in taking the stance that the Church should get out of the marriage officiating business vis-a-vis the state.

Bob

Many of you probably know this but in various countries, like Mexico and Germany, a civil marriage has to take place. Only after that are people allowed to have a religious wedding - if they want to.

And it was like that back in the accursed Soviet Union as well. The state erected lavish, vulgar, glitzy, kitschy & gaudy "wedding palaces" to encourage the couples to prefer civil weddings attractive, rather than religious ceremonies.

If, however, you were obstinate enough also to have a religious wedding, you might lose your chance at a university education; or you might be passed over for a promotion at work, or you might never get that larger appartment you need, or the telephone installed...they had subtle as well as not-so-subtle ways of making your life miserable if you professed faith in any significant, public way.

Is that where we're headed?

Yes and no. Obviously a child bears no guilt for his father's sins, but he may very likely bear the scars, and the scars may screw him up good and permanently.

It strikes me as not unjust to discriminate against a bastard in some cases. Such a one I would hold unsuitable as a potential spouse to one of my children, for instance. A person who has no model of Christian marriage will have difficulty in the execution of his own. At that, a person from such unfortunate circumstances for which he bears no guilt, may well be disqualified justly from certain states of life.


* * *

For clarity, it is not so much bastards under discussion on this thread anyway, as natural illegitimate children. Bastards are the issue of a couple unable to be wed, that is, people married to others, or closely related, etc. Ordinary natural illegitimate children, such as those born to unwed mothers of unwed fathers, are not strictly bastards. They are merely illegitimate and are legitimized by the subsequent marriage of their parents.

One likes one's pejorative terms in order.

It didn't harm William the Conqueror, not in the least. And after 1066, nobody but nobody called him William the Bastard again.

This has always been one of the fundamental duties and obligations of government. Back when government in this country was vestigial at best, and interfered in people's live to a very negligible degree, the states still maintained laws of inheritance because the state has a vested interest in the orderly disposition of property and the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next. It has always been so in Western civilization--the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, all had laws and customs (common law) governing marriage, inheritance, adoption, divorce, division of property and so forth. Marriage is not about a man and a woman. From the Church's perspective, its a sacramental union, an affirmation of Christ relationship to the Church; for the state, it's a matter of self-preservation. The state needs people to have solid households, to raise children to be productive citizens, to provide workers for the fields and the factories, and (above all) soldiers for the armies, without which the state shall perish. A lot has changed over the millennia, but demography is still destiny, and the need to raise children to perpetuate the state has not changed one iota.

I thought we were pretty much there already actually.

Really?

Most people learn abusive habits from their parents, who may appear to be a "model Christian marriage" on the outside.

That is a very naive outlook you have.

Such a distinction only existed in the Civil Code of mid-19th century Louisiana - nowhere else; not even, as I recollect, in the Napoleonic Code on which Louisiana based its statutes. And it existed solely to provide a foundation on which to play out the further distinction of adulterous bastards and incestuous bastards. All other illegitimate children whose parents failed to marry subsequent to their birth, despite being 'able' to do so, were still bastards - just not of either of those two categories.


And what might you do were your child to feel differently on that count? (having perhaps a somewhat less exaggerated sense than his/her father of the import of a paternal surname to choosing a future spouse versus looking at the individual's personal qualities)

Many years,

Neil

I thought it was an established fact that Latins like to define things. Canon law, in that case, has distinguished between categories of illegitimacy for a very long time. I'm not sure the word "bastard" was ever used canonically, but the distinction is there. The point is not important. I was only meaning to dial down the terms a little in the interests of civility.





It's not about a paternal surname. It's about the fact that whole families more than broken ones tend to produce healthy children. It is largely on the basis of this obvious and well-established fact that the Church opposes divorce and fornication in the first place.

If my child felt differently is not material to the point. For similar reasons, I would not encourage any of my children to choose a non-Catholic spouse. They might still. But to answer you directly, what I might do would depend entirely on the particulars of the situation.

This seems a particularly useless argument and not unlike the one that goes "same-sex couplings should be permitted to adopt children because some natural parents beat their children"; as if no conclusion can ever be reached from obvious facts since there is always a worse situation existing hidden somewhere.

Of course children of whole Christian marriages are not free of bad influences. So what?

If your daughter brought home the son of sadistic serial murderer, would you want to examine his character before you concluded on his suitability for marriage, or would you jump to the conclusion that the sins of the father rub off on the son often enough that you'd really just prefer she pick a different suitor?

So now we're going from children born out of wedlock to children of serial murderers. Yeah, that's apples to apples.

I think we're straying from "gay marriage." Let's get back on track.

Bob Moderator

We're not straying at all, because gay marriage is but a symptom, not the disease itself.

Have you no faith in the power of the Gospel to transform people's lives-even those who were born to parents not married to each other?

Would you care to elaborate on which particular states of life from which you would "justly" disqualify certain people? I ask because it seems to me that the direction in which you are going is to disqualify them from Christian marriage-an idea I find to be repugnant. As a matter of fact, I find the idea of disqualifying them from any state of life on the basis of their parents sins to be repugnant and entirely counter to the Christian faith.

As to your first paragraph, of course children may bear scars as a result of the sins of their parents. However, there is a difference between consequences that naturally follow as a result of the sins of one's parents and consequences imposed upon a child by law. The former are tragically inevitable, the latter are not.

I am not in a position to bar people from anything. I don't say an illegitimate is unable to contract marriage, or even should be. I say that offspring of broken homes taken as a group will have more failed marriages than will the children of solid Christian families. This is an obvious fact with statistics and anecdotes aplenty to back it.

Evidently some Christian people succeed marvelously in marriages to pagans, and illegitimates. Still I would not recommend either but rather would counsel against both. Why take the risk?

That is all. Nothing legal.

On the other hand, "defects of birth" have been enough in certain times and places to bar a man from ordination, or from certain clerical positions. I assume the rationale is similar.

As for the power of the Gospel to transform lives, I have considerable faith. some such transformations are stunning. At the same time, we must admit that most people do not transform much of anything but instead live out the script their parents handed to them.