In Reply: Defining Marriage: Church for Church, State for State, and Never the Twain Should Meet (Madeleine McAulay, Faith Hope and Politics Blog)

In reply to re: Vulgar Comments from “Controversies of Gay Marriage” :: Faith Hope & Politics, and more specifically, the following video:



(And shame on YouTube, both for taking it down, and for making me link to Breitbart to put it back up here.)

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The problem as I see it is that the religious sacrament of marriage was written into secular law, where it has no place. It is and should be one's faith that defines marriage, NOT state or federal secular law.

That's not to say that secular law should have no interest in who is or is not a family unit, but there is no reason that any church or faith should set the rules for the general population, at least some of whom are not adherents to the faith setting those rules. We are not a theocracy, and it makes no more sense to use biblical definitions in secular law than it would be to allow secular law to define religious sacraments.

US law cannot redefine sacred marriage. But then, the church cannot define secular "marriage,"(that is, the term as used in federal and state laws) either.

In a more perfect world, the word "marriage" would be stripped from all secular laws--perhaps be replaced with "civil union," or some similar non-sacred term--leaving marriage to God and church alone. But since that will probably never happen, I have to hope that folks are intelligent and sophisticated enough to understand that legal marriage (and all the laws and legalities that stem from it) and sacred marriage (the sacrament, and all that God expects from those who enter into it) are not necessarily the same, and indeed never have been.

I'm fully in favor of religions defining sacred marriage for their believers with as little outside interference from the government as possible. I'm also in fully favor of we, the people, legislating, enforcing, and adjudicating the state and federal laws concerning "civil marriage" with as little influence from religious institutions as possible. To do otherwise is to allow the State to control the Church, or the Church to control the State. Neither circumstance is in keeping with American values or tradition.
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Submitted May 21, 2012 at 5:00 am (or thereabouts... I didn't know it wasn't going to post, so I didn't pay sufficient attention to the exact time.)
Resubmitted May 21, 2012 at 12:07 pm (It doesn't seem to be a moderated blog... Maybe there was a glitch, the first time... ...but it didn't post the second time, either...)
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