A Brilliant Idea! (or: you say marriage, I say po-tah-toe)

[electricland]

I must confess I haven't read in full the delicious Orson Scott Card craziness that is making the rounds, only snippets via 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?

Comments

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

I like your thoughts on this subject. I'm not too sure on calling it "holy matrimony," but I'm a bit soured on the whole marriage business so I really shouldn't be listened to on this occasion: I'd just go with your subject line and call it "potato." :)

[swestrup]

I'm all for allowing Churches to call what they do 'Marriage' and allowing any/all churches to perform it.

I just then want it to have NO legal implications whatsoever. We can have 'civil unions' done in City Hall and THAT is what has legal implications. And yes, you can form a civil union with your brother, or with any legal entity. After all, its no longer about marriage.

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

Heck, that's what they do in France. You have a civil ceremony, but if you want to be married "in the Church", you do that separately.

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

It's my understanding that you can also do the reverse here (U.S.): be married by church standards but not legal ones. I'm not entirely sure how that works, actually. (I only know this because a pastor that I had once talked about marrying an elderly couple who wanted to be married but couldn't afford to because of the Social Security implications. He did a church ceremony so that they were married, but not involve any sort of legal ramifications.)