Posted on 01/26/2015 9:22:05 AM PST by GIdget2004
While the battle over same-sex marriage in Alabama is heating up, it has already reached a boiling point in Oklahoma. And the fight there could very well signal what's ahead here.
Oklahoma legislator Rep. Todd Russ - an Assemblies of God minister- has filed a bill requiring that only "an ordained or authorized preacher or minister of the Gospel, priest or other ecclesiastical dignitary of any denomination" be allowed to sign marriage certificates.
County judges would be prohibited from performing weddings and no clerks could issue marriage licenses.
No religious officiant? You're out of luck, though you can file an affidavit of common law marriage which, by the way, isn't always recognized in Oklahoma. And what if you choose not to have a religious ceremony at all? Too bad, you're still forced to find a clergy member to sign your certificate.
The Republican lawmakers' explanation is simple: "Oklahoma voted overwhelmingly against same-sex marriage, and yet the Supreme Court stuck it down our throats," he told the Daily Oklahoman.
Same-sex marriage became legal in Oklahoma in October. In 2004, however, Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
That's the same sort of amendment that's in place in Alabama. It's also the same type of amendment that's been tossed out by a growing number of judges.
Other lawmakers in Oklahoma are trying different tactics. One would bar state and local employees from recognizing or granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples under penalty of losing their jobs. Another would allow businesses to refuse to serve LGBT residents.
(Excerpt) Read more at al.com ...
This is how it was in England hundreds of years ago before all this crap-
Marriages were performed ONLY in churches and the records were sent to the civil registrar to be recorded.
Marriage Records
“Marriage entries recorded the date and place of marriage.
Information included the ages of the two parties, their residences, marital status, occupations, fathers, and even their fathers’ occupations. Civil copies of marriage entries are duplicates of original church entries. Thus, since it was the duty of the minister to forward
copies of all of the marriages he performed, the vast majority have been recorded at the civil level, even in the early years of civil registration.
However, always be sure to check the original church record since there are often discrepancies between the civil and ecclesiastical copies of the same record. Clerical errors happen! We blogged about this recently.”
http://www.progenealogists.com/greatbritain/englishcivilregistration.htm
Even if the law is passed and signed won’t last one second in the courts. It is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
The idea here is anything secular becomes a civil union and cannot be defined as marriage without clergy.
This government has violated the Bill of Rights hourly and the courts are okay with it
A simple search engine search for ‘become an ordained minister’ will show how easy it is to comply with such a law.
Unfortunately, there is no way this would be upheld by the courts under the “Freedom from Religion” clause of the Bill of Rights.
It is one of those hidden clauses that was discovered by the Supreme Court many years ago. It is right before the “emanations from penumbra” provision of the Constitution.
This is America, we have gay churches, Mosques, Satan worshiping clergy, Mormons, Unitarians, clergy means whatever any American wants it to mean.
This is just another way to make polygamy and gay marriage legal.
Jesus said in Luke 17 that the last days before his return would be like the days of Lot (Sodom), where homosexuality and pederasty were practiced. Like Sodom, where men broke the everlasting covenant with God by legislating homosexuality and pederasty, the prophet Isaiah predicted 2500 years ago that the entire world would be like this in the last days and would bring judgment on the world...
Isaiah 24:1 Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.
2 And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.
3 The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the LORD hath spoken this word.
4 The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.
5 The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.
Either that or go to your local PC(USA) parish. They'll be happy to sign your gay marriage certificate.
Ah, but England had (and in theory still has) an established Church.
That was also how it was in the Roman Empire from sometime in the 9th century when the Roman state decided that civil marriages were redundant, onward — before then, a Christian marriage was a Roman civil marriage undertaken with the blessing of the local bishop, followed by reception of the Holy Eucharist at the same Liturgy by the newly civily married couple. There was no Christian marriage ceremony. (Yes, there was still a Roman Empire then, its capital was at Constantinople. Historians since Gibbon have been lying and calling it “the Byazantine Empire” because they want to dispossess the later Christian phase of its Romanitas so they can claim Rome for secularism). This is why the marriage service is the most recently composed of all Orthodox Christian services (unless you count akathists and canons to saints whose glorification was proclaimed since then as “new services”. I don’t, I regard them as additions to small compline or variations on a paraklesis or molieben.)
Of course, all Oklahoma will do with this is to oblige homosexuals to have Unitarian-Universalist or Wiccan ceremonies, and to have the law eventually struck down on behalf of atheists who want a way of marrying without involvement of a clergyman of any sort.
The best way around this mess would be for the state to get out of the marriage business entirely. The associated statutes about sex, children, taxes, etc., would need some modification, but would survive.
Already there was an IRS designation, Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters (POSSLQ), to handle single or joint filing of taxes.
Importantly, this would return the definition of marriage to churches *as far as their domination was concerned*, since there would be no limitation on who could carry out a legal marriage (as in two adult humans with no duress). But at the same time, churches would be under no obligation to accept marriages performed by anyone else as genuine.
In practice, little would change, because government has no legitimate involvement in marriage, as such, just behavior.
I have been trying to tell this to people all along, especially the libertarians who use it as cover that we just make marriage religious.
It is a ridiculous idea on all levels, so ridiculous, that it is just phony nonsense.
This is stupid and won’t do anything to fix the problem. Here in the U.S., we have religious liberty, so anyone can be “clergy”, and therefore, anyone could sign your marriage certificate.
There are churches that will literally ordain anyone who asks them (Universal Life Church, for one). After that, all you need to do is register with your state and you are legally equivalent to a priest or reverend of a mainstream denomination with years of training.
No, the answer is to separate marriage into its secular and sacred dimensions, and to let the state administer the first while religious institutions administer the latter. Call the formal "civil marriages" if you must, but recognize that any religion is free to reject a mere civil union as a marriage for religious purposes.
Solid move by Oklahoma. Let’s hope the bill is enacted
When I was teaching in Turkey, I frequently passed a city building where marriages took place. Marriages were a purely civil matter, with registration with the city government being the only requirement. I asked my department chairman about religious weddings. He said that after the civil wedding, the couple could ask an Imam to come to their house and bless the marriage, but that wasn't required.
I do think some kind of civil registration is needed, because there must be records of who is already married, who is married to whom, who will be responsible for the care of children, who will inherit property, etc. Marriage is not a purely private affair. There are lots of ways in which society is involved in marriage, and that must be accounted for.
If I’m not mistaken, our forefathers not only left England to have religious freedom, but also fought a bit of a war with the British so we could have our own way of life.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I don't see where it says, "States shall provide civil marriages."
And the secular ones are called "partnerships." There are plenty of laws concerning the formation and dissolution of partnerships. I don't care if it has 20 people.
The state can neither make nor dissolve a marriage. The state does not have that capacity, regardless of the number of laws we pass. We can pass a law saying the Earth is flat, the universe is 2 Kilometers by 2 Kilometers, we're drinking free bubble up and eating our rainbow stew. That doesn't make it so. Popular opinion, even when put to a vote, does not govern the universe.
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