Talking Points – Leave Civil Unions to the Government, Marriage to the Churches: Two Points of View
The idea is that civil marriage and holy matrimony, because they’re two different things, should be parsed out separately.
Government can handle one, equally for both straight and gay couples, by providing civil marital benefits (regarding inheritance, taxes, hospital visitation & medical decision-making, etc) to anyone who wants them. Meanwhile, churches can handle the other and deny marriage to whomever they want.
In many ways, it makes sense, but it also creates whole new complications. Another consideration: is it really a solution to the problem, or is it just trying to sidestep the problem altogether?
Two essays explore each side of the issue.
- First, from Terry J. Allen: “Forget marriage — civil unions for all.”
- Then, Beth Robinson of Vermont Freedom to Marry offers a response to this line of thought.
Allen, Terry J. “Forget marriage — civil unions for all.” In These Times. 12 February 2009. http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4196/forget_marriagecivil_unions_for_all/ (retrieved 19 February 2009).
Making your marriage sacred should be between you and your goddy thing.
Making your union legal, on the other hand, should be between you and state-guaranteed legal and human rights. And it should be available to any two people, gay or straight, in whatever configuration: Mother and son, grandparent and grandkid, mother and daughter, and best friends should all be able to form legal couples that enjoy the rights, privileges, financial benefits and responsibilities now assigned to marriage. (Calm down Rev. Rick: Only two people, no pets allowed.)
America’s current marriage system, even when it includes same-sex couples, inherently discriminates against millions of people who are not in a sexual relationship. (That many legal marriages are platonic only adds irony to injustice.)
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The state’s job, then, would be to assign benefits, if any, to couples, but not to define who can enter into coupledom. There is no rational, as opposed to religious, reason why any two people shouldn’t be able to form a civil union that carries the same rights as marriage: to pass on and inherit property, make decisions for the sick, visit inmates and get discounts on Carnival cruises.
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Irrational fear and religion (but I repeat myself) underlie the state’s stance that it can assign secular rights to a sacred institution designed for sexual partners—and can exclude platonic couples. But really, would the legal right to shared Social Security benefits so excite two heterosexual women that they would turn lesbian? Would allowing two brothers to share medical benefits inspire them to acts of incest?
Or would, God forbid, too many people get health benefits and share incomes and resources?
Robinson, Beth. “The state of the marriage business.” Vermont Freedom to Marry: Beth’s Blog. 19 February 2009. http://www.vtfreetomarry.org/2009/02/beths-blog.html (retrieved 19 February 2009).
Beth from Vermont Freedom to Marry offers a great response to this line of thought:
Why not “just get the state out of the marriage business?”
If I had a penny for every time someone said, “I think we should just get the state out of the marriage business and have civil unions for everyone; let’s leave marriage to the church!”
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In an academic sense, it’s an interesting view, worth discussing and analyzing. But in the real world we live in here and now—and in particular, in the context of our current legislative work—it’s something of a dead end conversation for a bunch of reasons.
First, we aren’t starting from scratch here. Since our nation’s founding, marriage has been licensed and regulated by the state. Abolishing civil marriage as a state-regulated institution would be a radical departure from our history—far more dramatic than simply tweaking our existing laws to include same-sex couples. The notion that “the church” owns marriage is completely inconsistent with our nation’s history and traditions. We’ve confused matters some by authorizing clergy people to act as agents of the state in signing civil marriage licenses. But the fact is, civil marriage is a state regulated institution, completely independent of whatever holy celebrations some people perform within their faith communities.
Second, we don’t have a magic wand. As a practical matter, if Vermont stopped issuing civil marriage licenses and began issuing only civil union licenses to same-sex couples and different-sex couples, that would subject heterosexual Vermont couples to the same barriers to federal legal protections and recognition in other states as same-sex couples currently face. That’s obviously a non-starter. The goal here is ensure equal rights by increasing protections for the Vermont families whose protections fall short—not to promote equality by ensuring that everyone is equally disadvantaged.
Finally, churchgoers aren’t the only people who value marriage. Do folks really want to say that couples—including heterosexual couples—shouldn’t be allowed to get married if they don’t belong to a church or synagogue? Or if they belong to a faith community that won’t bless their union? (Talk to interfaith couples, or in some religious communities, couples in which one or both parties have previously married and divorced. Many wouldn’t be pleased by this suggestion.) Marriage is important to a lot of people—and not just those who go to church. As a Justice of Peace myself, I see lots of couples who choose to say their vows before purely civil authorities.
In my experience, once people actually think through the implications of the “leave marriage to the church” statement, they realize it’s not particularly helpful or realistic. So don’t be derailed by this one—next time you hear it, push back.
Cheers!
Emphases mine.
