Golmer's Blog

I know I have posted ob this subject before, but I kind of feel like making my point again, given that the gay marriage issue isn’t really about marriage at all, but rather it is about the separation of church and state and also about protections provided under the 1st and 14th amendments of the US Constitution.

It also boils down to a lack of definition in the terms used - I.e. “marriage,” “wedding,” and “civil unions.” I argue that at least one of the terms needs to go away.

There are really two things that need to be defined. One is a religious ceremony that varies from religion to religion, denomination to denomination, and culture to culture. That ceremony is rightly called a “wedding.” it is a religious or quasi-religious ceremony. The state has no constitutional right whatsoever to either prescribe or proscribe such a religious ceremony. It cannot grant or deny the right or privilege for a couple to have such a ceremony, nor does it have the right to tell any religious institution that it must or must not allow such a ceremony. Such matters are solely in the purview of whatever religious institution the couple in question chooses to have such a ceremony in.

Conversely there is a civil, contractual matter that state grants, and must grant on an equal basis per the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the US constitution. Contract law has almost always been held to mean two or more parties of sound mind and of the age of majority can enter into a mutually agreed contract with each other, and the 14th means such contracts must be equally protected under the law. There is no secular reason for denying such a contract based on sex, race, creed, color, etc. There are only religious reasons, and those are nullified by the first amendment. It doesn’t matter if that contract is called a “civil union” or a “marriage” - the contract mechanism itself is protected by the 14th. There is no constitutional method by which a church could to proscribe such a contract by the government. The civil contract is completely outside the purview of any religious institution.

Realistically, what we currently call #marriage is already an unconstitutional mixing of church and state. It is a misconstruing and mixing of the terms “wedding” and “marriage” (or civil union), and are wrongfully used interchangeably in the argument about gay marriage. They are unconstitutionally intermingled because one is expected to get a license in a government institution, have a religious institution perform a wedding ceremony, and then petition a court for dissolution.

Gays cannot petition the government to force any religious institution perform wedding ceremony. Churches cannot petition the government to deny gays the right to enter into a civil contract. The government cannot make constitutional amendments or laws defining marriage to exclude gays without repealing or revising (at the very least) the first and 14th amendments.

What gays need to do (IMHO) is to petition the government to extricate itself completely from any and all aspects of the process, other than ensuring the 1st and 14th are applied correctly with respect to contract law. Well, and perhaps clarifying the definitions used in the matter.