Posted on 02/04/2006 8:46:47 AM PST by rhema
In the wrangles over gay marriage, some conservatives are proposing a simple solution: Have the government just get out of the marriage business.
Small-government conservatives are saying, Why not just let people have any marital relationship they want? What business does the government have regulating marriage? Christian conservatives are saying, Let the secular world throw out or redefine marriage if it wants, we'll keep marriage as a distinctly Christian institution.
Colin A.P. Jones, an American attorney and professor at a Japanese law school, offers a "free market solution." Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, he argues for the need to break up the "government monopoly" on marriage. Instead of one set of marriage laws that apply to everyone, he proposes using the model of corporation law. Marriage would become the formation of a corporate partnership.
"Couples entering into marriage," Mr. Jones says, "should be able to use a partnership agreement that is tailored to their own circumstances and aspirations, one that reflects the values and expectations that they themselves attach to marriage."
He further proposes establishing larger "marital corporations" consisting of like-minded couples who could set the terms for marriage according to their own beliefs. "A Catholic marital corporation would forbid its members from divorcing. Progressive marital corporations would allow gay marriage. Islamic or Mormon fundamentalist marital corporations could allow polygamy."
Mr. Jones does acknowledge the government interest in regulating marriage. Not all arrangements—such as incestuous ones—would be legal. Children's interests would be protected. Divorce would be a matter of dissolving the corporation. Those with strict anti-divorce clauses would exact a strong penalty.
"Exclusivity and the use of choice to define one's identity are at the core of modern consumer society," Mr. Jones concludes. "Extending this to marriage is only logical."
The problem with privatizing marriage is that marriage is not private. Nor is marriage a "legal fiction" constructed by the government. Nor is marriage the creation of the church.
Marriage is a function of God's creation. Seeing that "it is not good for man to be alone," God made woman—not another man, nor any other creature—as "helper," with whom he is to leave his old family to start a new one. The couple is to be "one flesh" and "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 2:18, 24; 1:28).
"What therefore God has joined together," said Jesus Himself, "let not man separate" (Matthew 19:6). God is thus the author of every marriage. (This text also makes gay marriage impossible, since God does not join together people in relationships He forbids.) Both marriage and singlehood are callings from God (1 Corinthians 7). The New Testament goes so far as to describe marriage as imaging the relationship between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:22-33).
Though Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox say marriage is a sacrament, Protestants do not, since non-Christians too can get married. Though it takes many cultural forms, marriage is universal, for believer and nonbeliever alike. Though God indeed establishes marriage, He does so through what Calvinists call "common grace" and Lutherans call "the order of creation."
Marriage is God's provision for the biological imperative: engendering children and caring for them. It is also God's provision for the cultural imperative: That we were not created "to be alone" entails not only the personal companionship of marriage but the formation of larger societies of which the family is the basis. So those societies, with their God-ordained governments (Romans 13), do have a legal interest in marriage.
But the state cannot change the reality by changing the law. Nor can churches. The liberal denominations that are performing homosexual weddings—whether or not state law allows them—are not creating marriages. Nor can individuals. A private romantic or sexual preference cannot overthrow God's design. Marriage itself, as God built it into His creation, cannot be revised.
maybe one for the list?
free being the operative word.
The song Too Much Time On My Hands must be academia's anthem.
I don't think it's a good idea.
No, it is both. It has both sacred and secular dimensions. And just as the secular state must never impose on the sacred institutions of the church, neither does the church have the right to impose on the state.
To the degree marriage is a contract between adults -- and that is the state's only interest in the relationship -- then any arrangement between two adults is within the domain of the state. However, that is no more "marriage" than a couple of eggs, some flour, and a hunk of butter is a cake. To be marriage, it requires more, at least in the religious sense.
If two people want to sign a contract that establishes a partnership, they are free to do so. If they choose to CALL it a marriage, then let them. But no church on earth HAS to recognize it as such, nor does it have any moral standing. It is purely a legal arrangement, nothing more. And it certainly isn't a marriage.
The state can't get out of the marriage business, because the state needs to keep records, oversee inheritance laws, and work for the fundamental good of society--which rests almost entirely on healthy marriages and the proper upbringing of children.
And Veith is right. No one can change the nature of marriage. It's built in. Man, woman, children. If you want to make it work properly, you have to support stable marriages.
Thank you for getting the main point of the article. Some posters are reacting to the off-base views that Veith surveys in the first of the article. In the scond half of the article, Veith (a theologically astute Lutheran) presents his own view, which I would say is theologically sound and which accords with the order of creation and the divine law written into human hearts:
. . . marriage is not private. Nor is marriage a "legal fiction" constructed by the government. Nor is marriage the creation of the church. Marriage is a function of God's creation. . . . the state cannot change the reality by changing the law. Nor can churches. The liberal denominations that are performing homosexual weddings—whether or not state law allows them—are not creating marriages. Nor can individuals. A private romantic or sexual preference cannot overthrow God's design. Marriage itself, as God built it into His creation, cannot be revised.
The overwhelming conclusion that we have arrived at regarding marriage is clearly reflected in this article.
BOTTOM LINE: it is the order of creation, the design of God, and He alone who determines what a marriage is. And liberal "churchmen and women" cannot change that just because they don't like a normal reading of the beginning of The Book. And governments that ignore the "order of creation" have no power to do so either.
The state has always been in the marriage business also because the question of who inherits what parcel of land is a very, very important issue. In a world where the primary form of wealth transfer has been inheritance throughout most of human history society had a strong interest in marriage.
No, it is both. It has both sacred and secular dimensions. And just as the secular state must never impose on the sacred institutions of the church, neither does the church have the right to impose on the state.
To the degree marriage is a contract between adults -- and that is the state's only interest in the relationship -- then any arrangement between two adults is within the domain of the state. However, that is no more "marriage" than a couple of eggs, some flour, and a hunk of butter is a cake. To be marriage, it requires more, at least in the religious sense.
If two people want to sign a contract that establishes a partnership, they are free to do so. If they choose to CALL it a marriage, then let them. But no church on earth HAS to recognize it as such, nor does it have any moral standing. It is purely a legal arrangement, nothing more. And it certainly isn't a marriage.
*** DING DING DING *** No more calls; we have a winner!
The sad and funny thing is that Veith apparently does not realize that he ended up making an ironclad case for the proposition (the state should simply butt out of this matter, which is beyond its mandate and competence) that he apparently intends to attack.
All of which is taken care of perfectly well by sticking to what the state can do competently (or at least adequately) -- i.e. the administration of civil contracts -- and leaving matters which are beyond it in more capable hands.
The state should manage its own inheritance records -- and, to avoid confusion, should probably call the limited facet it manages by some name other than "marriage".
Who was it that vexed Lincoln by positing that a tail was a leg?
I don't remember God creating Adam and Ed, I think it was Adam and Eve. LOL. Amen.
Marriage is not a "distinctly Christian" institution. I believe the Ten Commandments pre-date Christ.
Many swear by this:
Origin of marriage
The Country of Women / told by Sapabo, of Nikaura
Two women had their houses in one place. They saw the flying-foxes come and settle on the roofs of their houses, and come inside. They let them stay in their houses with them as their husbands.
Then the other women of the district all did this until one of these women tied a rope on her boar, and left him in the enclosure under the banana leaves.
She made a pudding and took it to the boar regularly, but there was a man in another country who had a sore on his leg, and wanted his sore healed but could not heal it. This man made a raft of banana stalks, put it in the sea, and went on to it. The sea took him out into the open ocean, and continued washing his sore until he was cast ashore in the country of these women.
He jumped ashore and walked along in ignorance, thinking it was perhaps a place of men. He was afraid and hid, and remained in the heart of the banana stalks close to the boar.
Now, when the women brought the pudding to the boar she set it down, and left it, and went home. Then the man drove the boar away from the pudding, and took it and ate it, and when he had eaten it he went and hid again in the banana leaves. He did this many days, and the women knew well that she had made puddings for the boar, but she saw that the boar was not fat. She talked it over with herself, saying :
"Often have I made pudding, and brought it to this boar and he has eaten it, but how is it that he is not fat?"
For formerly she had seen him grow fat, but in the latter days had not fattened at all. She went and made yet another pudding, and said to herself,
"Today I will take this pudding and set it before the boar."
Having done this she hid and watched if the boar world eat it or not. And when she still watched she saw the man emerge from the heart of the banana stalks, come and drive away the boar from the pudding, take it and eat it. When the women saw it, she ran and asked of him,
"Where did you come from?"
He told her,
"I made a banana stalk raft, and sat on it, and the sea carried me away and I came ashore in this place, and I was afraid and came and hid and remained here."
She said to him,
"I haven't got a husband, come we two will stay in my house."
They went together to the woman's house, and the man took the woman for his wife.
The other woman did not know, and he stayed with her for many days. In the night the flying-foxes came again and the man smote the flying-foxes, and the other woman heard when he smote them that the flying-foxes cried out, and they smelt the scent of the hair of the flying-foxes when the man cooked them.
In the morning they asked the woman,
"What made your husbands cry out in the night, it seems as if you have killed them, and cooked them?"
She denied and said
"No."
She did this until she became pregnant. The other women knew when she was pregnant, and asked her how she became pregnant, and she told them about the man. Now they all knew he was her husband, and the others also wanted to be his wives until they all became pregnant and bore children.
And so it was some were men and some were women; and at length people were plentiful in that country
Many whats?
Many whats?
All the many of Nikaura of course!!
Ping
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