A brief addendum. . . marriage and the state and church.

This is just a brief addendum to my previous post on California's noxious proposition 8.

I wanted to propound my personal preference for handling issues of state contracts, specifically marriage.

I personally believe that we should adopt a new process for establishing state marriage contracts. This new process should be solely a civil process and no rights to oversee such contracts should be granted to private groups or churches.

WOW! That was radical, wasn't it? Not really. In fact such a system exists in many other countries. One such country, Germany, has much greater church state interaction than would be accepted in ours and, yet, they accept this duality in the establishment of marriage contracts without difficulty.

What this would mean in practice is that a couple wishing to get married in the state and to enjoy the benefits conferred by the state law on such contracts would be required to speak an oath (vow) before a witness and sign the contract in front of a public official. Such a process would be similar to the current one for receiving a marriage license but would require the witness and spoken oath as well. Such civil services are currently available in most states for a nominal fee.

Would this mean that couples would no longer be permitted or able to marry in churches, temples, mosques or other religious institutions? Of course not. It would simply separate the act of entering into a state marriage contract from that of entering into a religious one. You could do both or one or the other. The church ceremony would be between you, your religious community and God. The state one between you, your spouse and the state.

What's the point? What does this change? Well, in my mind it does a number of things.

1. It enforces the separation of church and state that is central to our religious freedoms. it takes church out of a state function of sanctioning contracts that are enforced by the state legally.
2. It removes the arguments by those who oppose gay marriage on the basis that it would somehow corrupt their religious interpretation of marriage or would force their church to perform such marriages under the law. Yes, this argument is specious, I know that. Still, the clear separation makes such an argument more clearly irrelevant.
3. I believe this enhances the spiritual aspect of religious ceremonies. If the state purpose in a church wedding is removed, one has to ask oneself "why am I marrying in church?"

Anyway, it will probably never happen in our country or state but I wish it were so. I do think it would render much of the discussion on the issue of gay marriage moot. At a minimum it would clarify lines and lay bare the true motivation behind those who would continue to propound a constitutional ammendment.

California Proposition 8, the real issue.

Wow, this election cycle is one of the most heated I've ever experienced. Leaving aside the national election for a moment, we have an increasingly heated election here in California and the issue fast rising to the top of the heap is an old one. . . gay marriage. Yes, this issue has managed to become the barn burner in California during an election cycle that features the total melt down of our financial situation and continuing wars on two fronts with others threatened. I won't even go into some of the cynical motivations for placing this topic on the ballot, you can fill in the reasons for yourself. In this space I just want to address the core of the issue itself.

This isn't about children being taught about gay marriage in schools. There's nothing in current law that requires this or that marriage be taught at all, though the yes on 8 crowd propagates these fictions.

This is also not about freedom of religion or religious speech. Members of churches and temples of all stripes will continue to be permitted to preach whatever they believe about this contentious issue. Remember, not all churches are against homosexuality! There are some that feature gay priests, pastors and even bishops!!! Both proponents and opponents will be able to continue arguing their viewpoint and hurling insults from pulpit to pulpit.

No, and the issue is also not about the sacredness of marriage. We're dealing with the issue of a marriage contract between people and the state. There is nothing in any law that forces churches to marry gays or lesbians. Some do, some don't and that will continue. My marriage of 21 years to my, first and only, wife is not threatened by the marriage of two men or two women just as it isn't threatened by the marriages of so many couples who have since divorced or the teenage marriage of Governor Palin's daughter and her boyfriend.

The real issue here is the attempt to write discrimination into the California state constitution!

I was just listening to my favorite radio station for call in programs on one of our local NPR (yeah, no surprise there, right?) stations, KPCC. They were discussing prop 8 and one of the callers cut right to the chase. I didn't have time to quote this perfectly but I'll paraphrase as accurately as I can. he said: It's not about formal instruction of gay marriage in schools . . . I don't want my 5 year old exposed to this kind of lifestyle and asking their teacher, "can a boy marry a boy?", and the teacher telling them that this is legal.

That sound harmless enough, doesn't it? But the caller was making none too subtle a point. He doesn't want his son or daughter to hear about things in the culture that he doesn't agree with. Is that really something upon which we can base a law, much less a constitutional law?

Where does that sentiment stop? I don't like my kids exposed to religious proselytizing. I don't want the LDS or Jehovah's Witnesses coming to my door and trying to convert my kids. Can we write that into the constitution please? What is it that bother's you and can we write that into the constitution? Let's restrict your rights under law because you might do something that someone or some group is personally opposed to.

This is the issue. We should be extremely careful about any modifications to our constitution particularly modifications that codify restrictions of rights or discrimination of any single groups access to those rights. If one has not infringed on the rights of another (i.e. as in committing a crime against them) then they should not have their rights circumscribed.

It is up to each of us to instruct our children on our beliefs and to see that they have the filters we consider essential at each stage of their development. But we and our children do not exist in a homogenous and sanitized society and culture and they will be exposed to people with different lifestyles, religions, races and even sexual orientation than our own. Depriving others of their rights is not an acceptable way to deal with this fact. If you believe that it is then I am prepared to call you a bigot.