Professors Douglas Kmiec and Robert George
Posted on 05/28/2009 6:35:46 AM PDT by NYer
.- Doug Kmiec, a prominent Catholic who backed Barack Obama’s presidential bid, has endorsed replacing marriage with a neutral “civil license,” a proposal law professor Robert P. George called a “terrible idea” that would make the government neglect a vital social institution.
Speaking to CNSNews.com, Pepperdine University law professor Doug Kmiec said that although his solution to disputes over the definition of marriage might be “awkward,” it would “untie the state from this problem” by creating a new terminology that would apply to everyone, homosexual or not. “Call it a ‘civil license’,” he said.
“The net effect of that, would be to turn over--quite appropriately, it seems to me, the concept of marriage to churches and a church understanding,” he said.
Kmiec said that a motive for California’s Proposition 8, which restored the definition of marriage to being between a man and a woman, was religious believers’ “genuine concern” that the California ruling imposing homosexual “marriage” was not addressing religious freedom issues.
Saying he was among those believers who had such concern, Kmiec noted the possibility that churches which don’t acknowledge same-sex “marriage” could be subject to penalty, lose public benefits, or be subject to lawsuits “based on some theory of discrimination.”
Kmiec argued “civil licenses” would address the question. He proposed the state withdraw from “the marriage business” and do licensing “under a different name” to satisfy government interests for purposes of taxation and property.
Under his proposal, “the question of who can and cannot be married would be entirely determined in your voluntarily chosen faith community,” he added, saying that the proposal would reaffirm the significance of marriage “as a religious concept,” which has a much fuller understanding than is found in civil marriage.
Responding to Kmiec’s proposal, Princeton University professor Robert George said it was a “terrible” idea and a “very, very bad one.”
George told CNSNews.com that marriage is not like baptisms and bar mitzvahs but has “profound” social and public significance.
“It’s a pre-political institution,” he said. “It exists even apart from religion, even apart from polities. It’s the coming together of a husband and wife, creating the institution of family in which children are nurtured.”
“The family is the original and best Department of Health, Education and Welfare,” he continued, saying that governments, economies and legal systems all rely on the family to produce “basically honest, decent law abiding people of goodwill – citizens – who can take their rightful place in society.”
“Family is built on marriage, and government--the state--has a profound interest in the integrity and well-being of marriage, and to write it off as if it were a purely a religiously significant action and not an institution and action that has a profound public significance, would be a terrible mistake,” George told CNSNews.com.
“I don’t know where Professor Kmiec is getting his idea, but it’s a very, very bad one.”
IMO, the less the government is involved in our lives, the better off we all are.
Agreed. It was that way when I was married in Turkey, also (yes, to another American). Is what you're suggesting that ministers no longer perform marriage ceremonies for the State (either by choice or by law)?
Heterosexual marriage serves a secular, social purpose. It's great that religions sanctify the institution, but it is not only a religious institution.
Agreed. And as long as it appears that we can preserve marriage to be between one man and one woman, this is the only arrangement that should be sanctioned by the State. Having said that, unless you see some major cultural jolt moving our society, and particularly the youth of our society back to a worldview that you and I would agree is a "moral" one, I cannot see any circumstance where the current trend will be reversed. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't see how.
That's why the libertine proposal to "get government out of the marriage business" is so absurd.
OK, but I think we somehow have a disconnect between ideals and reality. As I said in my earlier post, marriage is hardly the sanctified institution it once was, irregardless of homosexual "marriage" (or unions or whatever you want to call it).
I don't see much holy about the State institution of marriage (if it was truly holy, there wouldn't be that 50% divorce rate). I am concerned about the religious sacrament, as, at least in some places, there is an attempt to keep it as a sanctified arrangement that it should be.
I was just making a point that marriage serves a secular purpose in addition to its religious purpose.
I don't have a problem with the state using ministers as deputies in order to validate civil as well as religious marital unions. On the other hand, I don't mind having the civil and religious ceremonies separated, either. I don't think it matters much either way.
Agreed. And as long as it appears that we can preserve marriage to be between one man and one woman, this is the only arrangement that should be sanctioned by the State.
I would take it further. The state saction of this arrangment is essential to the health of our society.
Having said that, unless you see some major cultural jolt moving our society, and particularly the youth of our society back to a worldview that you and I would agree is a "moral" one, I cannot see any circumstance where the current trend will be reversed. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't see how.
The destruction of marriage altogether has always been the main goal of gay marriage advocates. The proposal in the article gives them exactly what they want.
On the other hand, I'm not nearly as pessimistic as you. I think there will be a backlash in time. When we see more and more families disintegrating before our eyes, the value of traditional marriage will become apparent. Give it time.
In the mean time, my wife and I will show the world the virtues of traditional marriage by our example.
I actually think that this would be the best idea anyway.
The state saction of this arrangment is essential to the health of our society.
Agreed? But what if the culture really wants to commit cultural suicide.
The destruction of marriage altogether has always been the main goal of gay marriage advocates. The proposal in the article gives them exactly what they want.
I don't agree with that. The destruction of the Church (and Christianity) is the main goal. Once Christianity is destroyed as a source of morals and standard of virtue, they will have won. It's a spiritual battle, underneath all of this.
My reason for suggesting what I did was that it will prevent them from being able to destroy the Church via the requirement to make the Church recognize their arrangements (at least as long as there is a first amendment).
When we see more and more families disintegrating before our eyes, the value of traditional marriage will become apparent. Give it time.
I hope you're right. I'm also not holding my breath.
In the mean time, my wife and I will show the world the virtues of traditional marriage by our example.
Dig it.
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