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electriclandI must confess I haven't read in full the delicious Orson Scott Card craziness that is making the rounds, only snippets via ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
boywhocantsayno (here), Scalzi, and now matociquala.
A commenter in the last says: "But the logical conclusion seems to me to be to just get the government out of the marriage business. Leave the sacraments to religion and let the government just establish legal partnerships to provide for inheritance, next of kin rights, and so on, with no need for those to be romantically based at all - maybe you trust your brother or your best friend more than anyone else in the world."
My heathen brain promptly responded "But that is marriage!" Not to mention, are you going to stop people getting married at City Hall? Or by a justice of the peace wherever? Hey, how about we invalidate all marriages that weren't performed by some form of clergy while we're at it, since clearly the government shouldn't be in the marriage business and those people aren't really married anyway? No, huh? (Disclaimer: I am sure this is not what the commenter meant at all. Is just where my brain went with it.)
Anyway, it does bring us around again to the division between the marriage-is-a-legal-arrangement and marriage-is-a-holy-sacrament camps. Never the twain shall meet, clearly, so in the interests of not forcing churches to do something they don't want to do while being fair to all, why don't we just call the legal arrangement "marriage" and the sacrament "holy matrimony"? Et voila! Everyone's happy!
...well, a girl can dream, right?
boywhocantsayno (here), Scalzi, and now matociquala.A commenter in the last says: "But the logical conclusion seems to me to be to just get the government out of the marriage business. Leave the sacraments to religion and let the government just establish legal partnerships to provide for inheritance, next of kin rights, and so on, with no need for those to be romantically based at all - maybe you trust your brother or your best friend more than anyone else in the world."
My heathen brain promptly responded "But that is marriage!" Not to mention, are you going to stop people getting married at City Hall? Or by a justice of the peace wherever? Hey, how about we invalidate all marriages that weren't performed by some form of clergy while we're at it, since clearly the government shouldn't be in the marriage business and those people aren't really married anyway? No, huh? (Disclaimer: I am sure this is not what the commenter meant at all. Is just where my brain went with it.)
Anyway, it does bring us around again to the division between the marriage-is-a-legal-arrangement and marriage-is-a-holy-sacrament camps. Never the twain shall meet, clearly, so in the interests of not forcing churches to do something they don't want to do while being fair to all, why don't we just call the legal arrangement "marriage" and the sacrament "holy matrimony"? Et voila! Everyone's happy!
...well, a girl can dream, right?
