Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Leonard, IN on July 30, 2007:

Wow, so many comments already; so many things I can say.

Let's start off with the fact that marriage is indeed a religious event. It has always been a religious event. God made Adam and Eve and put the two of them together as husband and wife. Much later the government decided they wanted to be involved (what else is new.) Now, as evidenced in this blog, many people only care about the government portion of marriage and couldn’t care less about the religious aspect.

I don’t care who uses what term, but the religious aspect and the legal aspect are and should be completely separate.

Personally, I would like to see "marriage" continue to be a religious term meaning that a man and woman have pledged before God to live together as a man and a wife, and take on all the roles and responsibilities that come along with that commitment per God's direction.

But, since intellectuals have a tendency to give idiots what they want to hear and change the meaning, I definitely see "marriage" referring to the legal aspect in the future and the church creating a new term for the religious aspect, or possibly using the term "wed" and "wedded" instead of "marry" and "married".

Either way, though, they should be completely separate.

Personally, I don’t think the government should be involved at all. What is the real purpose for all of the government involvement and bureaucracy? If two people (or more than two people) want to enter into a legally binding contract, all it takes is their signatures. A notary would make it even more substantial. From a legal sense, why does the government need to get involved until one ore more of the parties believe that the other(s) is(are) not living up to their agreement? The only reason I can find is for taxes. There is tax revenue for the issuing of the license, but more so, there are tax breaks for those that are already married. (The whole married filing jointly thing is almost always a better way to go than filing separately.)

So, let’s eliminate them. Eliminate the tax and the tax breaks, thereby eliminating the need for the government to keep track. If private insurance, medical, or other companies want to make a distinction, they can do so based on the religious ceremony or on the legal contact, of which they can require a copy or some sort of proof. There is no need for government involvement, period.

On the Henry VIII thing, the accurate account is that he became the head of the Anglican church in order to get a divorce because the Pope would not allow the catholic church of the day to give him one. As such he showed that the state was more important than the specific church in which people worshipped, as he required his subjects to accept his divorce (or I think technically it was an annulment) or be tortured/executed.

As to the "What God has joined together" skepticism, this refers to the fact that a marriage should only be undertaken if one truly believes that God has pointed you to your union. If you do not believe that it is God’s will that you be married to your to be spouse, you should not allow yourself to be wed. As such, God is to be in your marriage. “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.”

Posted by Mary Ellen, Pennsylvania on July 30, 2007:

I have to say I agree with the theory behind Fr. Rick's statement---people spend way too much time planning their wedding, and next to time planning their marriage. I think that's what Fr. Rick was getting at anyway. I remember very clear some advice given to my fiance (now spouse of 15 yrs) and I by my parish priest. He told us that when couples live together first, its much more likely that their marriage will fail, because they spend their whole pre-marriage relationship thinking that everything that annoys them about their mate will change "when we get married" ... and it doesn't!

Nothing (personality wise) changes when you get married. Marriage is the commitment you've made, to each other, in front of God and the community, to deal with "it" ("it" being whatever life brings you) together, as one. Haha this is the same priest who thought that marriage handcuffs were much more appropriate than a ring because you're in it together. Nothing pretty or fancy like a ring about it, just you & your spouse.

Sounds like Fr. Rick was saying hold off on that big fancy wedding celebration until you're sure that what you're celebrating is going to last.

Posted by Brant, TX on July 30, 2007:

I also disagree with Fr. Rick.

The church has LONG been in the marriage business - as has been noted by many other posters. (I may have missed this thought, though)... The very first public act of Christ as he began his ministry was to turn the water into wine at a marriage ceremony.

Texas recently doubled the cost of obtaining a marriage license. However, if the couple attends at least 8 hours of pre-marital counseling, the charge is "free". This MAY have the intended effect of reducing the divorce rate.

Posted by Jacquelyn, New Orleans on July 30, 2007:

My husband and I are Christians, and we got married without the involvement of either the church or the state -- yes, it's possible and (imo) the best way to do things. Yes, we followed it up with official things a few months later (because lots of people were annoyed at us), but we don't celebrate the anniversary of when we "signed the marriage license" or when we "had the public church ceremony." We celebrate the anniversary of when we got married.

If we had it to do over again, we would not do the legal paperwork or the religious ceremony again. There are lots of reasons NOT to get married in the eyes of the law (e.g., it gives the government certain rights over your family, at least here in Louisiana), and the only reason to get the legal license is for tax breaks and other financial benefits. Puh-leeze. Who was it that said, "Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for!"

There are also lots of reasons NOT to have a traditional "church" ceremony...namely, it has nothing to do with God. You spend 10 or 20 or 50 grand just so that you can be stressed out for 6 to 9 months and then not remember your wedding day. (Not joking...none of my female friends even REMEMBER their own wedding days through the haze of stress, organizing, and smiling for pictures. They told me to be sure and have the wedding videotaped because it might be my only memory!!!!)

This has nothing to do with your commitment, nothing to do with God (the Bible does not give priests, pastors, etc. any authority to marry people), and nothing to do with financial responsibility (unless you're independently wealthy!!). "Church" weddings have become simply a social/cultural institution. Government and the church should both get out of marriage.

Posted by Rabbi Adam, Fresno, CA on July 30, 2007:

I go the opposite direction of Fr. Rick. Government should get out of the marriage business. The only way to reclaim our moral authority over marriage is to reclaim, not give it up completely to the State!

Posted by Nate in Michigan on July 30, 2007:

I've been saying for years that the government needs to get out of the marriage business! The religious ceremony should stand independent of the civil contract-law portion, which again should be none of the government's purview. Taxing couples differently than individuals is their only legitimate reason to care, anyway, and changing that portion of tax law wouldn't hurt my feelings any.

Posted by Denise, NC on July 30, 2007:

I find it interesting that people keep pointing to the Bible as the reason that the church should be involved in weddings.

Great. So God said marriage should be between one man and one woman and they are joined together in the Eyes of God and are one flesh from that point on and only God can sunder the union. Therefore, Christians (and probably Jews, since that's all Old Testament) should get married in a religious ceremony.

People seem so focused on their own ideals that they forget to ask where that leaves the rest of the world? You know, the really big part that isn't Christian, doesn't believe in the Bible, and/or couldn't give a rat's patootie about Jehovah or Jesus.

Since I live in America where freedom of religion means freedom for all religions, enforcing the Christian standard raises questions of Constitutionality in my mind. It is so much simpler to have a legal act witnessed between two consenting adults (or more to taste, regardless of gender) so the law can hold their feet to the fire for the support of spouses and children of the union. Religious ceremony optional, thank you. As no religion in the US has the legal right to force people to stay married or enforce child support or alimony laws, when it comes to the nitty-gritty of communal support provided by a marriage, religion really has no part. Yes, I realize that Islamic sharia laws may be the true exception in countries where they have power, but most countries have a separate legal system for dealing with these problems.

Besides, Islamic law still allows for multiple wives, so we're back to the argument about who gets to decide what a "marriage" really consists of!

Posted by Lance in Kuala Lumpur on July 31, 2007:

In the US (I'm a citizen but live/work in Malaysia) there is a little thing called separation of church and state. Fr. Rick is exactly right -- the government has NO business in religious morality and relationships.

The big brouhaha over gay weddings would completely go away if the government got out of the wedding business and allowed civil contracts that defined relationships and rights, to be determined by the couple. I'm sure there would quickly be standard contracts, including pre-nups and terms of contract cancellation, penalties for nonperformance, and so on.

Then if a church wanted to wed two people, it would be the church's business and theirs, but NOT the government.

Note that a corollary to this must be that a church wedding absent the civil contract would NOT be binding in legal terms upon either party.

Surely it is only a matter of time before some gay couple in a state that supports gay marriage sue a major church for refusing to marry them -- since the pastor, in performing marriages which function as a state contract, is under law NOT entitled to discriminate against anyone based on sex, religion, or sexual preference.

I do look forward to that. Pity it couldn't have been Falwell, but perhaps Haggard would serve?

Posted by Laura, Ohio on July 31, 2007:

I've been reading everyone's comments, and I've got to say that this particular issue is not one I've really pondered all that much before today since I have absolutely NO intention of getting married. I've seen WAY too many people screwed up by marriage and/or divorce to want to have ANYTHING to do with the institution. That's about as far as I had gotten up to this point.

The whole "till death do you part" thing is a relic from the days when people got married when they were still kids around 14 years old and only lived until they were 30 or 40 years old; they spent the majority of their lives together, heck, they weren't even adults yet! Since being together was the way they grew up and was incorporated into their self-images, it was the only reality they knew.

Today, most people don't get married until they're at least 20. At that point, both parties have a pretty good idea of their own identity and sense of self; the amount of adjusting required to make a marriage work is, quite frankly, beyond most people without making major changes to their self-image. Making major changes to your self-image is not something ANYONE wants to face; the majority of us have enough problems coping with the rest of the world, much less someone else's needs and desires. And even if both parties are at the same point and have the same ideals and hopes and dreams and goals when they get married, that can change 10 years down the road. Then the married couple has a serious problem since both parties want to go in different directions; they have different goals and needs and desires. And so the fighting starts, and the compromises, and the feeling that the other person isn't trying while you're trying too much...it becomes a total mess.

And then you get the divorce and the hostility and the anger and the hatred. The sad thing is that, in a lot of cases, both parties still care for each other (domestic abuse issues aside; that's a whole other problem) but are so lost in the muck from trying to make something that's over work that no one takes ANYTHING good from it. The amicable divorces are the ones that take place before the yelling and the accusations start. That's not to say that some of the marriages can't work with a little discussion; don't get me wrong, I'm all for marriage counseling BEFORE the yelling starts. It's just that we're a different species than we were when marriage was first instituted legally or religiously or however it happened. Our life spans are more than twice as long, we have children later in life, both sexes have MANY more options in terms of jobs, life style, morals and beliefs.

And our longer lives give us more opportunities to evaluate our self-image and identity and to change; I'm sure that most of you would be horrified by your world-view 10 years ago if you looked at it now. In fact, I bet most of you can't even really remember it. My point is that I have to go along with the viewpoint of the people who advocate limited time marriage contracts with the parameters laid out in writing. "Till death do us part" just doesn't work anymore.

I also have to agree with the people who state that the religions should not be allowed to legally marry anyone; legalities should be handled by law, religious beliefs by the religious institutions. For those of you who have stated that you don't feel it's legal and/or morally valid unless your priest or pastor or religious official (whatever the title) officiates, then go ahead and get blessed in the church or synagogue or whatever of your choice. However, if you want get the benefits of the legal institution, go and get the license signed by an authorized government official. After all, the benefits that you want are offered by the government and companies (insurance, etc.) based on legal grounds, so you should have the documentation handled in a legal manner not a religious one.

I am also in favor of group and same-sex marriages as long as all involved parties are legal consenting adults. Do the fundamentalist fanatics and the moral bigots out there REALLY believe that your refusal to acknowledge these unions and your tying up the courts and political agendas with this "morally wrong" garbage is keeping these types of unions from occurring? If you're truly that naive, then I've got a message for you: YOUR RANTING IS NOT STOPPING ANYTHING. It's just irritating the rest of us.

Posted by Nola, Canada on July 31, 2007:

The government should set up a registry whereby any two people who wish to assume responsibility for the other's financial and emotional needs can register. Nothing further would be required to have all the rights and responsibilities the state attached to marriage. You could have all of festivities associated with it: the skydiving, underwater or mountain top mantras would have as much validity as anything any church would do in the eyes of the legal community.

Such registration would, however, be a prerequisite before any time of religious ceremony, called a wedding, that the couple might choose to enter into. The religious authorities then would have full control over who they married (or refused to marry) within their own denomination or faith. It would separate the two objectives, you make people decide if they wanted anything more than the state gave them, without involving the church in what is frequently a farce put on for the benefit of family and friends without the proper thought and preparation for a lifetime relationship.

Either that or change the law to acknowledge that any couple which has lived together for six months is lawfully joined for the purposes of the state and that a divorce will be required to undo it. Religious rites, optional.