Humanity has a long history of freely mixing church and state, with very little boundary between the two. Modern industrialized civilization probably has the most areligious political institutions of any in history. Communist countries may do better on separating church and state than most western democracies, dunno.
Marriage has been both a political and a religious institution for a very, very long time. Gay marriage has been rare, but not unheard of, throughout history, and has shared this two-spheres-in-one-bond nature where it has happened. So, much as I would love the supreme court to rule that marriage is religious and thus out of bounds for the government to rule on, I know it isn’t going to happen. I am also troubled by state recognition of clergy and tax exempt status for churches. They seem like pretty clear violations of the first amendment to me.
But it is also a sensible political reality check to say that the state cannot ignore religion, because they are and always will be politically relevant.
I don’t want the state to ignore religion exactly. (Actually, I would love for the state to ignore religion when it comes to social issues, but I don’t think it’s possible.) What I want the state not to do is favor some religions’ views/values over others’.
Stalin’s country may not have had religion, but there was no shortage of fundamentalist dogma. He rejected churches because they didn’t like rival influences of any type. Likewise, the “army first” chanting in Pyongyang is as much brain-off teamspeak as any “praise Jebus”.
Marriage does feel like a lexical battle now. Support for equal legal treatment is pretty high (70%ish?) but once we whip out the M word, people lose their shit. The relationship between federal and state laws is so tangled and stupid. I imagine the breakthroughs in the next ~10 years will be piecemeal, like joint income taxes and such.
I like the solution where the legal portion of every marriage is described by some common term (union, partnership, whatever) but I’m pretty sure that would ignite an equally fierce battle with conservatives who feel like their status is being degraded. The whole appeal of religion is a smug elevation over someone–anyone–so they’ll never accept equality no matter how it’s packaged.
I don’t see how to include religion in the solution, if only because of the question “which religion?” Why do Mormons and Catholics speak for “sacred marriage” and not Episcopalians, Unitarians, reform Jews, etc? What would Gene Robinson do?
Crap. I can’t form a coherent thought about the marriage issue.
But one thing: state establishment of atheism (as done in communist countries) violates the establishment clause just as surely as establishing mormonism would. When the state equally treats all religions, that’s not obviously a violation, though that’s a bit more sketchy (there are old cases of the state giving money to churches to pacify the savages, and that was A-OK with the courts of the age as long as any church could apply for funding). Tax-exempt status is available to secular non-profits like universities, hospitals, soup kitchens, food coops, outdoors clubs, and so on, so giving it to religious non-profits like churches doesn’t bother me, except for the fact that sometimes a locality (like Pittsburgh) is screwed because so much of its potential tax base is non-profit.
So treat them the same as secular non-profits.
In the US, non-profits still have to file fake “tax returns” with the IRS & state boards, disclosing their finances. These returns become public records. Unlike secular non-profits, Churches are specifically exempt from these annual filings with the IRS. Without disclosure, it becomes near-impossible to verify that they’re actually acting in a non-profit capacity.
The US was founded in part by people fleeing persecution for their totally wacked out beliefs, partly by taxing them (not just by burning them at the stake) so there’s historical precedent, not unjustified, for saying the state should do absolutely nothing to any church.
What I just said of course contradicts my prior statement, which implied equality between secular and church institutions. Note that no belief in god is required to be a religion (viz Unitarian Universalism)
Say I’m the reverend of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ of the Sunny Valley. Now say I want to become a con man, and I make my money by defrauding people into buying time-shares in nonexistant vacation homes, and I get my lawyer to write the contracts in such a way that it’s between my Church and the fraud victims.
By your logic that the state should do “absolutely nothing to any church”, what’s the legal recourse of the victims?
Worse than this happens (scientology, for example, or various suicide cults). And the answer is very nearly “shit all.” Which is pretty suboptimal.
Precisely. In my worldview, the first amendment doesn’t mean the government has to give religions carte blanche to do whatever they want. The current state of affairs indicates that most of the US disagrees with me, which I’m kind of used to.
Since the status quo says “religious orgs are exempt from lots of laws”, there’s a giant incentive for an org to say “I’m a religion, I do what I want”. On a case-by-case basis, the individual gov’t functionary who’s trying to apply the law (tax collection, zoning board, parking police) either recognizes such a claim, or says “you’re not a religion” and spanks the org. I imagine this gets abused, and for example Christian churches get much more leeway than pagans. That sure sounds like an establishment of religion to me.
The solution isn’t to be more generous in recognizing religions. The solution is to ignore claims of religious-ness, and apply the law equally to everyone.
I could easily be convinced of your view.
However, you raise the very issue that leads to the conclusion that the government should butt out of anything churchy: if you apply the law “equally” to everyone and every organization, it’s very easy for the local authorities to — totally coincidentally, no bias at all, really, honest — audit the Anglicans a lot more than the Catholics (or the Summum much more than the Eagles).
The NYT had an expose not long ago about religious organizations versus the law. One problem: the church is largely immune from civil rights law and labor law — it can fire someone for being gay, or sick, or refusing to sleep with the pastor, and the government is unlikely to fight that case. Another: churches expanding from houses of worship to largely unregulated businesses with health clubs and so on (the health club can ban gays, because it’s religion; and it has some degree of impunity with respect to safety laws).
I’m pretty sure marriage was religious before it was political. At what point did a marriage start to include legal rights?
There is no rational, secular argument against gay marriage.
The way I see it, there are two fair and equitable solutions.
1) Allow any two consenting adults to marry in the eyes of the law.
2) Do away with marriage as a legal concept. Replace it with a “civil union” or whatever, which could be entered into by an two consenting adults. Any religious person who wants to get married can continue to be married by their church.
Of course I realize neither of those will be popular with those who sponsored Prop 8 and their ilk. But that’s merely an obstacle to be overcome, not a reason for not doing it.
I don’t support separate but equal solutions like marriage for the hets and civil unions for the homos unless they are really and truly equal. The law establishing civil unions would need to include a clause that all organizations and companies (excluding religious institutions of course) must treat marriages and civil unions as equivalent (in terms of employer benefits, couple discounts, etc).
Not good enough. What if you emigrate to another state, or another country? No state can mandate that another jurisdiction accept this equivalence. There’s something to the name ‘marriage’.
I’m assuming that’s in response to the “separate but equal” segment of my post?
If so, you’re right. It would need to be mandated at the federal level, and it’s hard to envision that happening any time soon. As it stands, even the word “marriage” isn’t enough to get your union recognized across state borders, thanks to DOMA. I confess ignorance when it comes to moving to another country. . . what happens now if you’re married in your state and move to a country that does not have gay marriage?
Sure, Saudi Arabia isn’t going to recognize a gay couple with a marriage certificate as being married. But the problem is that Canada won’t recognize a gay couple with a this-is-not-a-marriage certificate as married either.
There’s never been a requirement that marriages from other locales be recognized; and indeed, it’s not — you can’t get your completely valid Malian marriage certificate with four wives to be officially recognized in the US.