This is how it was in England hundreds of years ago before all this crap-
Marriages were performed ONLY in churches and the records were sent to the civil registrar to be recorded.
Marriage Records
“Marriage entries recorded the date and place of marriage.
Information included the ages of the two parties, their residences, marital status, occupations, fathers, and even their fathers’ occupations. Civil copies of marriage entries are duplicates of original church entries. Thus, since it was the duty of the minister to forward
copies of all of the marriages he performed, the vast majority have been recorded at the civil level, even in the early years of civil registration.
However, always be sure to check the original church record since there are often discrepancies between the civil and ecclesiastical copies of the same record. Clerical errors happen! We blogged about this recently.”
http://www.progenealogists.com/greatbritain/englishcivilregistration.htm
Even if the law is passed and signed won’t last one second in the courts. It is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
The idea here is anything secular becomes a civil union and cannot be defined as marriage without clergy.
A simple search engine search for ‘become an ordained minister’ will show how easy it is to comply with such a law.
Unfortunately, there is no way this would be upheld by the courts under the “Freedom from Religion” clause of the Bill of Rights.
It is one of those hidden clauses that was discovered by the Supreme Court many years ago. It is right before the “emanations from penumbra” provision of the Constitution.
Jesus said in Luke 17 that the last days before his return would be like the days of Lot (Sodom), where homosexuality and pederasty were practiced. Like Sodom, where men broke the everlasting covenant with God by legislating homosexuality and pederasty, the prophet Isaiah predicted 2500 years ago that the entire world would be like this in the last days and would bring judgment on the world...
Isaiah 24:1 Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.
2 And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.
3 The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the LORD hath spoken this word.
4 The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.
5 The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.
The best way around this mess would be for the state to get out of the marriage business entirely. The associated statutes about sex, children, taxes, etc., would need some modification, but would survive.
Already there was an IRS designation, Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters (POSSLQ), to handle single or joint filing of taxes.
Importantly, this would return the definition of marriage to churches *as far as their domination was concerned*, since there would be no limitation on who could carry out a legal marriage (as in two adult humans with no duress). But at the same time, churches would be under no obligation to accept marriages performed by anyone else as genuine.
In practice, little would change, because government has no legitimate involvement in marriage, as such, just behavior.
This is stupid and won’t do anything to fix the problem. Here in the U.S., we have religious liberty, so anyone can be “clergy”, and therefore, anyone could sign your marriage certificate.
There are churches that will literally ordain anyone who asks them (Universal Life Church, for one). After that, all you need to do is register with your state and you are legally equivalent to a priest or reverend of a mainstream denomination with years of training.
No, the answer is to separate marriage into its secular and sacred dimensions, and to let the state administer the first while religious institutions administer the latter. Call the formal "civil marriages" if you must, but recognize that any religion is free to reject a mere civil union as a marriage for religious purposes.
Solid move by Oklahoma. Let’s hope the bill is enacted
Regarding pro-gay interpetations of the EPC, note that the Supreme Court has historically clarified that 14A added no new protections to the Constitution. It only strengthens those protections expressly amended to the Constitution by the states.
“3. The right of suffrage was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that amendment does not add to these privileges and immunities. It simply furnishes additional guaranty for the protection of such as the citizen already had [emphasis added].” —Minor v. Happersett, 1874.
Again, activist justices and judges have no constitutionally enumerated gay rights protections to apply to the states via 14A. Sadly, the reason that judges are getting away striking down legitimate state prohibitions on gay marriage, imo, is because parents have not been making sure that their children are being taught about 10th Amendment-protected state powers versus constitutionally unprotected “rights.”