OpinionJournal - American Conservatism
I really do not understand the conniption fits certain conservatives have about "gay marriage." It is beyond the Federal Government's jurisdiction to mandate that, say, the Catholic Church must perform the ceremony if it is requested. The First Amendment obliterates such a concept from ever being possible. However, the Feds can allow a same sex union to be recognized on a civic level.
Case in point: Two divorced, heterosexual Catholics want to get married. They go to their local parish priest and ask him to perform the ceremony. He refuses, because the Catholic Church, as part of its theological tenets, does not recognize their respective divorces as legitimate. Divorce is a secular proceeding. So, instead, they go to City Hall and the mayor performs the ceremony. Or they hop a cruise liner and have the captain to the deed.
Either way, in the eyes of the Church, the marriage is illegitimate. But, in the eyes of the State, the divorces and subsequent marriage is legitimate.
The same holds true if a same sex couple seeked out the same parish priest. He has every right to refuse the request. However, if there is something in the US Constitution that prevents a mayor or ship's captain from performing such a ceremony, then, to my mind, the feds are acting as a de facto "state" religion, which the First Amendment absolutely prohibits. And it is an odd theology the state religion follows.
By recognizing the heterosexual divorces, they usurped the Catholic Church's authority. In the Catholic ceremony, the priest says "let no man put asunder." But a judge--a man--negated the religious sacrament which the Church had performed, under the premise that the state's theology supercedes the Church's.
So, following that line, what stops the state from performing its own ceremony to bond any two people together? The state religion has established that it can, legally, bind two heterosexual people in matrimony and, over any objection of any religious denomination's theology, intercede to dissolve such a union. So, ipso facto, they should be compelled to perfom such a binding ceremony regardless of the gender of the couple requesting such a union.
"All Men are Created Equal," right?
I really do not understand the conniption fits certain conservatives have about "gay marriage." It is beyond the Federal Government's jurisdiction to mandate that, say, the Catholic Church must perform the ceremony if it is requested. The First Amendment obliterates such a concept from ever being possible. However, the Feds can allow a same sex union to be recognized on a civic level.
Case in point: Two divorced, heterosexual Catholics want to get married. They go to their local parish priest and ask him to perform the ceremony. He refuses, because the Catholic Church, as part of its theological tenets, does not recognize their respective divorces as legitimate. Divorce is a secular proceeding. So, instead, they go to City Hall and the mayor performs the ceremony. Or they hop a cruise liner and have the captain to the deed.
Either way, in the eyes of the Church, the marriage is illegitimate. But, in the eyes of the State, the divorces and subsequent marriage is legitimate.
The same holds true if a same sex couple seeked out the same parish priest. He has every right to refuse the request. However, if there is something in the US Constitution that prevents a mayor or ship's captain from performing such a ceremony, then, to my mind, the feds are acting as a de facto "state" religion, which the First Amendment absolutely prohibits. And it is an odd theology the state religion follows.
By recognizing the heterosexual divorces, they usurped the Catholic Church's authority. In the Catholic ceremony, the priest says "let no man put asunder." But a judge--a man--negated the religious sacrament which the Church had performed, under the premise that the state's theology supercedes the Church's.
So, following that line, what stops the state from performing its own ceremony to bond any two people together? The state religion has established that it can, legally, bind two heterosexual people in matrimony and, over any objection of any religious denomination's theology, intercede to dissolve such a union. So, ipso facto, they should be compelled to perfom such a binding ceremony regardless of the gender of the couple requesting such a union.
"All Men are Created Equal," right?
posted by Unknown @ 9:33 AM
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