Replies

"What we should have is separation of marriage and State. Let the Churches marry anyone they choose, but have the state only enforce civil contracts between consenting adults with full knowledge or what they are signing beforehand."

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am a pastor and State legislator. I have been saying for some time that marriage is an ecclesiastical institution shanghied by the State. Divorce, for example, is nothing more than a breach of contract suit between parties and has no place in the Church. Is not civil marriage, then, a contract between parties?

We cannot have it both ways. If the State insists on being secular, it cannot be heard to enforce religious sacraments. There ought, indeed, to be separation of marriage and State.

Pastors willingly consent to using their positions to act as agents of the State in filing papers with City Clerks for marital contracts. There is no doubt in my mind but that the State is violating the establishment clause by sanctioning a church-blessed marriage. Perhaps there ought to be two separate and distinct marital conditions - one before God and the other a contractual one with the State. Interesting.

Actually, my wife and I were "married" in a religious ceremony and some months later filed the paperwork for the civil contract. We have two anniversaries, but we celebrate only the first. We were on vacation when the paperwork was filed and had to find out later when that was.

The way that is done is to ask a pastor to perform a wedding ceremony without the civil marriage license. The wedding, then, is of a certainty before God and demands a higher level of commitment than I have noticed when folks are merely "Tying the knot," so to speak.

Thank you.