Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Russell Mann, Idaho on July 28, 2007:

The conversation seems to be heavily weighted toward the opinion that the government should marry, and if desired a church wedding can follow. As a previous commenter pointed out, this is how it works in many Latin and South American countries.

My limited experience is with Mexico and the Mexican culture. It's tragic to see the plight of women and children who have been affected by this system.

What happens all too often is a couple gets married in a civil court, and the religious wedding is meant to follow, when they can raise enough money. After a few years, they have some kids, never get around the the religious wedding.

Since the Catholic culture considers a church wedding to be legitimate, it's usually the man who justifies abandoning his wife and children because "they were never really married anyway."

Maybe I just met the wrong crowd of people in Mexico, but that story seems to have played out far too often, and it's the mother and children who suffer.

I've been married twice and divorced once in the States. An amicable divorce with paperwork help by a mediator cost $300, including child custody and support arrangements. I wouldn't consider that to be too expensive a price to pay considering the gravity of what is occurring.

Perhaps if divorce were more expensive, people who can't find any other reasons to work things out would try, just to save some dough. Perhaps if getting married was more expensive, people would be more careful about who they marry in the first place.

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I'm not sure I agree with your conclusions. If divorce were more expensive, abandonment would surely increase. If marriage were more expensive, marriage rates would decrease. -rc

Posted by Liz in Boston on July 28, 2007:

It happened in colonial America. The Pilgrims settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony to get away from the Church of England. The colonial government decreed that they would only recognize weddings done by an agent of the state, the first Justices of the Peace. George III, the head of the Anglican church, agreed because he didn't want to lose the colonies.

I think America should adopt the French standard of marriage, where everyone has to marry at city hall. You're free to have a church wedding, but the government won't recognize it.

My husband and I aren't religious, so we didn't see the point of a church wedding. My state will grant anyone a one-day license to perform a wedding, so we were married at a nice hotel by Hubby's sister. My very religious mother still calls our wedding "weird", but no one else cared. If we decided to have a church wedding down the road, we'll do that.

Posted by Kim - WI on July 28, 2007:

Marriage is ordained of God and is a vow (which is a promise to God). Church officials most definately should continue marrying heterosexual couples. Celebrating 5 years later is fine as is renewing vows butthis special occasion should not be passed off as the wedding day. Obviously, if it were,it would leave far too many children appear to be illegitimate.

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Please actually read the letter from Fr. Rick and the other comments -- it's "definate" you didn't spend much time doing so, since your argument about illegitimate children proves you missed the point entirely. -rc

Posted by Mary in Virginia on July 28, 2007:

I've actually long said that we need to create a system where "marriage" is no longer a legal or civil institution. No one will be married in the eyes of the law or the government, but they can have a civil union.

They could go and be married by the church as well if they want, but I agree that the two processes need to be completely separated from each other.

Of course, I think that we need to make it much harder for people to get married. Because we were married by a Catholic priest, we had to jump through quite a few hoops and they actually were, for the most part, good things. They made sure we'd discussed the things that commonly lead to fights, that we'd talked about our future, and that we were sure of what we were doing.

I don't see anything wrong with that.

Posted by Denise, NC on July 28, 2007:

Maybe I'm missing something, but the only people "making" the church get involved are the participants. I got both of my marriage licenses at the court house, and could just as easily have gotten married by the Justice of the Peace right then and there.

I also saw nothing anywhere that tried to prevent a mixed-race marriage, like one of your posters alluded to. Questions of race are collected for demographics, not as a means of weeding out undesirable pairings. The idea that an official (either religious or secular) would attempt to block a marriage based on the differing races of the couple is archaic paranoia at best and downright illegal at worst.

I do agree with the big wedding/small marriage hypothesis. For my first marriage I just had to have the big church wedding, with cathedral-length train and veil and the horse-drawn carriage. I picked the historic church based on appearances for the photos (I'm not even Christian, though my first husband was), and did the same for the reception hall. Even with pre-marital counseling, my train was longer in feet than the marriage was in months! I was paying off the bills from the wedding for even longer! My divorce was cheap, quick, and easy, mainly because there were no children and I showed up in court with a cast and fading bruises as proof of our "irreconcilable differences."

My second wedding was much simpler. We may have spent $500 (including my new wedding dress on clearance for $90) and held a beautiful reception for 30-40 people by supplying the main course and having pot-luck sides. I and my new relatives got together beforehand and did all of the silk flower arrangements ourselves, giving us time to get to know each other. A chaplain married us at the base chapel in a simple, non-denominational ceremony that combined Christian (for my husband) and Wiccan elements (for me). We have been together now for eleven years and are still going strong.

People get married with a lot less and do just fine. We consider ourselves blessed to have what we do, church or not.

Posted by Tom - Stuttgart on July 28, 2007:

"What God has joined together"? I'd venture to say that this only happens on extremely rare occasions. The simple truth is that we do what we want, then try to squirm out of it by blaming it on God or religion or "whatever".

God gets blamed for a lot of things that simply aren't his fault -- and there seems to be a lot of people who want to speak for Him when He is perfectly capable of doing so without our help. So let's take God out of the marriage business. Do you think we would have such a high divorce rate if He were really bringing people together in marriage?

The church should focus more on providing counseling, training, and encouragement before and after the wedding -- and let the government take care of the actual wedding.

Posted by Doug (BC, Canada) on July 28, 2007:

My opinion is simple, but appears to be opposite to that of most. I think the GOVERNMENT should get out of the marriage business. Marriage is a religious function. How a couple decides to have that done should be up to them. If a church doesn't believe in gay marriage, it shouldn't marry gays... somewhere there'll be a church that will. If a church believes a particular couple to be unready, they can refuse to marry them. Requirements for pre-marriage counseling, etc. remain up to the individual church.

Once upon a time, our entire world was more "religious" and the government shared religious roles and religious beliefs were passed into law. This is no longer the case, generally, in the western world.

There is no longer a reason for a categorization under law of married or not... common law couples have exactly the same rights and responsibilities as married. Common law: what nonsense is this? Essentially the government had to decide when to call someone married under the law when they didn't want to be!

The government should stop having categories for married or not on pretty much ANYTHING (taxes, insurance, whatever). When a child is born, its parentage should be documented and both parents held financially (at least!) responsible for it until it attains the age of majority, whether they remain together or not. And why are so many men getting away with not paying "child support"... just include it with taxes... enforcement of THAT seems to work fine.

When people move in together to share their financial resources (whether to raise children or not), they should put together something akin to a partnership agreement to define at least the division of "stuff" when/if they later dissolve the partnership. If everybody did this, the negative perceptions associated with a "prenup" would go away. The law already has provisions for the "blanket agreement" that would apply to those unwilling or unable to make up their own, in divorce law.

Marriage was once considered one of the building blocks of society. Now people's relationships are often both shorter and more creative than the limitations of marriage. Just for an example: Why is bigamy illegal? Who cares? OK, If a guy has two wives that don't know about each other, that's at least fraudulent, but if some group of three (or more) consenting adults want to cohabit and even raise children together, what's the big deal? Sounds like another holdover from religious beliefs to me... just like the hoopla against gay marriage.

Stop regulating relationships under the law, and just make sure nobody gets taken advantage of, and that the children are looked after by those responsible for them. Leave the rest to religion... any religion.

Posted by Izzy - MN on July 28, 2007:

I think it's the best suggestion ever given. Why should the church be involved in weddings? I have been with my fiance for 13 years, and while we are considering marrying in the fall, the last thing I have in mind is a church wedding. The state of marriage is an invention of the government to give you better and bigger deductions once you have children. But if you choose to have children before you can afford them, the more of those you have, the bigger your tax return.

How about if we abolish church weddings entirely and eliminate the pretenses that come with the institution of marriage? It's nothing more than a tax break charade.

Posted by Dana - VA on July 28, 2007:

Well, I came here to post my opinion, only to find that Doug from BC has gotten there ahead of me. I very much appreciate the direction that Fr. Rick is moving, as it is consistent with my own views on the separation of church and state. But I frankly don't see what business it is of the government's whom I choose to share a life with. Everything that happens via a "legal" marriage, such as property arrangements, medical decision-making, etc., can be accomplished without that one piece of paper. I'm not at all opposed to the idea of people choosing to make a formal commitment, whether it's via their religious protocol or some other way. I just don't think the government needs to be involved in the process.

Posted by Neil, UK on July 28, 2007:

In all areas Henry VIII was a defender of the church, but he believed that marriage and divorce were strictly state issues.
Rick - Georgia

I have always thought that Henry VIII believed that marriage was a religious issue, but didn't want religious rules to distract from his own agenda... and thought that the best way to achieve it was by keeping church and state together, but placing the latter above the former.

It's more than a little unfortunate when hypocrisy and principles can't be distinguished....