February 25, 2004

Separation of church and state.

Okay, you know what? I'm sick of this shit. I'm sick and goddamn tired of people responding to the gay marriage question by saying "what we really need to do in this country is to separate civil marriage from religious marriage." You think? Really? It's a brilliant fucking idea! So brilliant, in fact, that WE ALREADY DO IT.

Right. Sorry. I don't actually know why I get so worked up over this. The thing is, civil marriage actually is an entirely separate thing from religious marriage. Sure, many people combine their religious ceremony with their civil ceremony, but they're not the same thing. You can enter in to a legal marriage agreement without any kind of religious component. Religious institutions can (and do) perform religious marriages that have no corresponding legal component. And, in fact, anyone can throw a wedding and get married without having either the legal or the religious aspects involved. Don't tell me that we're moving closer to that situation, or that it's where we ought to be, or that you think it's a definite possibility. Start paying attention and acknowledging that we're already there.

No, you know what? I do know why I get so worked up over this. As long as the people who favor gay marriage keep framing the debate in terms of how we need to change what marriage means, we're going to be fighting from a defensive position. If we could shift the terms of the debate to pointing out that marriage in this country already means something that can easily, obviously, and almost inevitably encompass same-sex couples, suddenly we're not arguing from a position of weakness anymore.

Posted by Susan at February 25, 2004 12:55 PM
Comments

Who on the gay marriage side has been saying that?

Posted by: Mark at February 25, 2004 01:10 PM

Half of everyone I talk to, it seems. It's come up on two different mailing lists, discussions in the comments section on a couple of different online journals, and again just this morning on the Suspects forum. And in most cases, it's said by people who I generally think are smart, which makes it all the more frustrating.

Posted by: Susan at February 25, 2004 01:36 PM

It wasn't in the context of "we have to make other people understand that they are separate"? I'm having such a hard time imagining what these people would be proposing. Do they not realize that atheists can get married by a JP, or what?

Posted by: Mark at February 25, 2004 01:59 PM

I really want to think that's what they mean--as I said, these tend to be people I like and respect--but I can't quite pull it off. I have no idea why I keep seeing people present this as a really radical proposition, but I swear to you that I am seeing it.

Posted by: Susan at February 25, 2004 02:08 PM

Wait, wait, I've figured something out, and I think I've been unclear here. Part of what I'm responding to is exactly as I've described it, but part of it is instead phrased as "why not call all civil marriages civil unions, to force a separation between the legal and religious components". My response to both is the same, in that the separation already exists, and if we keep that in mind in the debate we can better highlight the philosophical inconsistencies in the "I oppose gay marriage but support civil unions" position. And at this point, maybe I ought to just make a whole new post to clarify. sigh.

Posted by: Susan at February 25, 2004 02:22 PM

I understood what you were saying, Susan, and I thought it was really clear, especially in the last paragraph of your post. It's the defensive position when the separation already exists that's worrisome here.

Posted by: Heather Shaw at February 25, 2004 04:08 PM

I understood you too. I've heard a variation on this argument which is that we need to get religion out of marriage because of separation of church and state -- but I think the point they're actually trying to make there is that religiously-motivated constitutional amendments and laws have no place being passed to say that it's okay to discriminate against gays where marriage is concerned. At least I hope that's what they're saying.

Posted by: Bondgirl at February 25, 2004 05:50 PM

Some babbling off the top of my head:

I think it's important to look at what people are responding to.

In this case, when people say "we should separate religious and legal marriage," what they're responding to is the vast number of people in the US who believe that the word "marriage" refers to a religious thing. Such people, I suspect, consider the non-religious secular/legal kind of marriage to be merely the state's acknowledgment of a fundamentally religious ceremony -- a way that benighted heathens can participate in a religious act without having to acknowledge that it's religious.

I'm guessing part of the idea of saying religious and legal marriage should be separate is that we should have a *universally acknowledged* separation of religious and legal marriage. 'Cause regardless of what the legal facts currently are, the two are not really fundamentally separate in the minds of a lot of Americans.

And that's why there's so much argument over same-sex marriage. The people who are opposed to it aren't only saying "You shouldn't give legal acknowledgment to same-sex couples"; I think a lot of them are saying "You're trying to redefine *a religious term*, which means something very important in my religion, to mean something that my religion doesn't support." (They try to frame it in terms of secular society because "I want to impose my religion on you," when stated baldly, is a losing argument in the US.) It's like if states started referring to the electric chair as "crucifixion" -- the argument against doing so would be primarily a religious one.

If there were widespread recognition that civil marriage and religious marriage are different things, same-sex marriage would be much less of a contentious issue than it is.

And that's why there's a lot less opposition to allowing civil unions, even theoretical ones that provide all of the benefits of marriage; if you don't actually call it marriage, you're not infringing on the religious institution of marriage. (There's still plenty of opposition to allowing civil unions, mind you; it's just not nearly as strong or as vicious as the opposition to same-sex marriage.)

By the same token, if the word "marriage" weren't so fraught with meaning beyond its legal meaning, people (including me) wouldn't care so much about making it legal for same-sex couples to get married per se. We'd be perfectly satisfied with the separate-but-equal approach, as long as it really did provide all of the legal rights and responsibilities. (Which CA's domestic-partners registry doesn't.)

Posted by: Jed at February 25, 2004 07:03 PM

Wow, if I knew this thing was provoking you into such a BOUNDLESS RAGE, we could have had a good debate about it last week!

I never did quite get to the heart of why I thought this was a good idea, even I used a lot of words to talk about it. I was playing around with the idea, talking it through to figure it out as I went. I'd like to fight with you about it now, but unfortunately I've been thinking it about it ever since I wrote that stuff and have changed my position. And now I'm more or less in agreement with you, and we can't have a good fight, and it pisses me off. You should've brought it up while you were visiting and we were still in disagreement.

What I was trying to say is that it is very easy to separate these things. People who marry need to get the legal papers, and then they have whatever kind of ceremony they want. Currently it is during the ceremony that the papers get part of their authorization; it doesn't need to be.

So I was suggesting a slightly more formal separation of those things would make it easier to see the reality that already exists: that a church can make their own rules about who they'll marry, while the state is granting legal status to two citizens. It seemed to me that it didn't much matter what you called the legal-papers end of things.

I've since changed my mind (should've posted a follow-up comment on Heather's board, but I felt I'd already posted too much). Mainly because it's a compromise position, and it's kind of silly to go through all these contortions when really, all we have to do is unclench and let marriage happen between any two consenting adult citizens.

I think this is difficult for a lot of Americans because they think about the word "marriage" as a holy thing with long religious traditions, so initially I thought it would be gentler on them to separate the church and state aspects more clearly by using a different term for the state part.

But I've been thinking that the best way to do that is just to let same-sex couples marry, because I'd just as soon have people confront and understand the reality that there's a separation between our various cultural traditions and the federal legality.

Posted by: Karen at February 26, 2004 08:24 AM

One more thing, though: even though I'm basically agreeing with you, I think it's well worth exploring options other than simply "legalise it". Because it's easy to look at same-sex marriage as just an expansion of civil rights, but that's an oversimplification. The institution isn't only a big deal in religious terms; it's a big deal in practical terms. The idea of men and women pairing up, the social and economic structures evolving out of that, have been a fundamental building block of our civilization for a long time. That's why the government is involved.

I don't think that much of that would be changed by the pairing happening between men & men, or women & women, but it's still a big deal to mess with the institution. And maybe the institution should be messed with a little. This is more than just a debate between Smart Open-Minded People vs. Stupid Religious People. There's a world of interesting questions and ideas here.

Posted by: Karen at February 26, 2004 08:45 AM

Jed basically stated my position -- I do acknowledge the the structure is there for a separation between civil/religous marriage, and that the primary obstacle to allowing civil marriages for same-sex couples is social acknowledgement of that. But as long as civil marriage is limited to heterosexuals, and limited to two people, and assumed to be procreative, and assumed to be for life, it's absolutely evident that it is still being unconsciously identified with religious marriage.

I want a real separation between the two, because I think that's the only hope that me and mine will eventually actually be able to enter into the socially-sanctioned, legally-protected marriages we may choose to.

There's just no logical reason (though, of course, there are historical reasons, c.f. Karen's point) for the State to care about gender or number of participants in a civil marriage. They should care about nurturing long-term stability of relationships (because it does good things for house-buying and staying in jobs and practical cost-sharing and the economy overall), and about child-responsibility. And that's it.

And hey, while we're at it, I want the option of term marriages as well. If people want to sign up together for twenty years in order to raise children together, then I want standard legal forms for handling that kind of thing, with option-to-renew clauses and all, and different ways of ending the relationship before and after the children are grown, so that we can try to ease at least somewhat the weight and shame and difficulty of divorce. And I know damn well that some people will get angry about this idea because they'll see it as a dilution of their ideal of "marriage". Well, screw 'em. My marriage is not your marriage, so back the hell off.

As long as we have to have any of these arguments publically, as long as we have to explain any of this to people, as long as we can't just walk into city hall and sign the appropriate paperwork as consenting adults, we ain't there yet.

There’s such a huge cultural weight to the idea of marriage, and people get so horribly protective of it -- think of those weddings where people cheer for the couple that’s been married the longest, for example. Why do we care? Why is it considered a virtue, a matter of social approval, when two people manage to live together for fifty years without killing each other? It’s nice for them, sure, hopefully, if they’re still happy about it. But why does it matter to anyone else? It’s partly long historical/cultural conditioning, and it’s partly fear that we ourselves will end up miserable and alone -- seeing someone else possibly managing to avoid that fate cheers us. But we need to break down this entire cultural structure, and allow for a far greater range of human happiness.

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