Reply #166: Sanctfication by state

[okasha]

The state is a secular institution that does not sanctify anything: not your driver's licence, not your high school diploma, not your speeding ticket, not your marriage.

Currently there are two varieties of marriage available in the United States, as they are in most other countries: there is civil marriage, presided over by a judge or JP; and there is religious marriage, presided over by a clergyperson with the permission of the state. Either type requires a marriage licence to be legal.

All the Massachussetts Supreme Court has done is open up civil marriage to all its adult citizens who have no legal impediment to marriage. It has no authority at all, and should have none, to dictate who may be married by any religius rite. That's up to the individual bodies to decide. At a guess, Episcopalians, Unitarians and probably Disciples of Christ are likely to start marrying gay couples immediately it becomes legal; the Baptists and Catholics will be a century or so in coming round.

As for waiting for a blessing from the ballot box rather than the judiciary, do you believe that African-Americans' civil rights are tainted because they were first enforced by the judiciary rather than "granted" by popular vote? How long do you think they'd have had to wait for "legitimacy?" There are places they'd still be waiting.

Oh, and Etzel--you write like Bill Buckley with a bad case of flatulance. Get over it.

Okasha