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July 31, 2003
Civil Unions
I have reflected a bit more on the matter of civil unions and I have come to the conclusion that my argument did not, in fact, fall off the cliff.
Given GWBush's recent statements, I think I have achieved a bit of clarity, especially in light of what I think he's trying to do which is wrong. He said:
I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman. And I think we ought to codify that one way or the other. And we've got lawyers looking at the best way to do that.
Wrong! The Church has already codified the sanctity of marriage and needs no further assistance from you. To do so is a breach of Constitutional principle as far as I'm concerned.
If Bush and conservatives are concerned about the sanctity of marriage they should be reminded (by someone like Karen Armstrong) that they are failing in their faiths. By engaging in their fundamentalist activism, they are undermining that which sacred texts have already set forth. That family and civil courts are already in the business of settling matters of divorce is quite plenty enough. But to put the law ahead of the process which otherwise might be handled exclusively by clerics is going too far. The United States has no business redefining Marriage, and people of God ought to understand that as well as people with great faith in the Constitution.
The state should recognize all civil unions without regard to faith and merely acknowledge Marriage as an expression of religious freedom and add a bunch of heretofores and other flowery legalese enshrining it because George Washington was married or some such. It should not quote any holy texts or suggest that there are multiple levels of standing in civil union.
A wedding of atheists at the Justice of the Peace is not a Marriage. It is a civil union. You can call it a marriage, just as you can call political partisans 'bedfellows', but that doesn't make it so. The state needn't codify what marriage is any more than it need delineate what Happiness people Pursue, it need only allow it to occur.
Posted by mbowen at July 31, 2003 02:56 PM
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