Eventually, the conservative churches might again take control of marriage as a religious rite, outside of the realm of government control and influence.
The reason that government got involved in the first place was seemingly legitimate, that society had an interest in promulgating marriage and children, so it should “help them out” married couples with largess. However, overnight this turned into a situation of furthering government power and control.
The first step in doing this is the hardest, that from a given time, couples that wish to be married will only be recognized in that denomination’s churches as married, not getting a government license to marry at all.
As far as the government (typically the IRS) is concerned, they will be called POSSLQs. Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters. They will keep their unmarried names in public, and known as Mr. and Mrs. only in their church and to friends and family.
Another hard step will likely need the agreement of many conservative churches, to *not* recognize marriage outside of their conservative churches. This will have to be “grandfathered” for those couples married previously, of course.
After some years, when this comes into effect, those couples married in civil services will have to officially no-contest divorce, before they can be married in church or have their marriage recognized as legitimate.
Government wants its control, however, so will not appreciate the effort to restore marriage to a religious rite. They will continue to try and force churches to marry anyone and everyone, and force couples to be government married and licensed.
So this is not just a glib exercise, but a very serious decision by the conservative churches, to separate “the state” from “the church”.
Yes, it is a good argument. And I can certainly see the reasons for the churches to break from the state.
At the same time, if civil marriages become the norm for the secualar world, then gays would indeed have full equality, and there is something to be said for fighting full equality for moral and social reasons.
In this sense, it would be ideal to make gays stop at civil unions, and continue defining marriage as one man/one woman.
Excellent post and well thought out argument. Let me attempt to respectfully disagree! :)
I think the government interest you describe above is in fact legitimate, not just seemingly so. The fact that government has corrupted its purpose (as the pursuit of power will always do) in this area doesn't de-legitimize that interest.
Outside of a few left wing “think” tanks, I don't think there's a legitimate argument against the assertion that children on average are more likely to become productive and law abiding citizens when raised by a Mom and a Dad. I would also argue, based less on data and more on personal observation, that children raised in such an environment also tend to be more moral people. Morality is the necessary corollary to small government (see my other posts on that subject). Thus I believe it is well established that a free republic like ours depends critically on a healthy institution of marriage throughout society in order to stay free.
The question is how to accomplish this. Indeed marriage is and should also be religious covenant, but we must keep government's role well clear of that aspect. As far as the government is concerned, marriage has one purpose only - to create an environment in which as many children as possible are raised in stable homes with a Mom and a Dad. Consequently, if a lefty church wants to “marry” two men and they introduce themselves thereafter as husband and husband, that's fine - but their union will not be recognized as marriage by the state because it doesn't serve the stated public interest of the institution. The state can therefore direct special consideration (not largess) to married couples such as first dibs on all adoptions, sovereign parental rights when determining how to raise their children (special protections from social worker busybodies) and other such things. In effect, the government approaches and provides protections to married families in much the same way we establish laws to protect businesses and intellectual property in the name of free markets, and the legal stability required for free trade.
As distasteful as it is for me to acknowledge this, it is a necessary role of government to regulate things. The trick is to make sure that regulation is aimed at the proper objectives: Justice, NOT fairness; liberty, NOT prosperity; individual freedom, NOT security. To the extent that justice, liberty, and freedom are served by fairness, prosperity, and security, then fine, but fairness, prosperity and security are NOT the objectives of government. Official recognition and protection of marriage and the family unit is an important part of that recipe.