The basis of civil marriage laws is property. Specifically, could a man divorce a woman and keep all of the property that she brought to the marriage? And how were the children to be cared for? On that basis, we could easily separate civil contract law from what happens in churches. We could, but that’s not the goal of the Left. They will not be satisfied by the latest SCOTUS ruling. They would also not be satisfied by the destruction of every religious congregation in this country, because evil is never satisfied with its last meal. As I told friends last night - If I have to go to jail to defend my religious rights, I’ll do so.
I agree-it’s just like abortion- it wasn’t enough to legalize it, they want it to be as brutal as possible it seems.
We always rely on Washington and Jefferson to prove that marriage licenses existed all along but they really weren’t typical. They were wealthy people with lots of property and lots of debts and their legal documentation of marriage was largely a means of protecting the spouse from the collection of debts acquired prior to the marriage.
When George Washington died, his slaves were freed but Martha Washington’s slaves weren’t. They were collateral on debts owed as were her husband’s. Much of George Washington’s vast landholding was used to repay debts still owed upon his death which allowed the slaves to be freed.
People on the frontier were a whole different ball game. They were generally poor, held only a couple acres of land, and didn’t see government representatives for years at a time. In my ancestry research, I found lots of people who lived together for years before a traveling preacher came along and made it official. He might write on a slip of paper for the couple that they are married and record their names in a book that might be recorded with the state when and if the preacher returned to civilization.
The first ceremonies under the Civil Partnerships Act took place in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales in December 2005. At the time, campaigners said the law ended inequalities for same-sex couples. Meg Munn, minister for equality, said: "It accords people in same-sex relationships the same sort of rights and responsibilities that are available to married couples."
Smart calls the event a "milestone" that "is marriage by any other name, essentially".
She adds: "Legally speaking, there's only a tiny difference. "The actual allowing of same-sex couples to enter into a state-recognised, basically marriage, with all the same obligations, the same safeguards and so on is really, really significant."
To many Christians, however, while a civil partnership confers all the legal rights of marriage, a church wedding is seen as a mystical event, the making of promises before God in a sacred setting, endowing the relationship with a special "blessed" quality.
Marriage "obligations, safegaurds, and so on..." is deliberately vague.
Traditionally marriage consummated a relationship, creating a bond welded by God. This is the "Holy Matrimony" provided by the church.
A preponderance of citizens are living together and raising children outside legal marriage and generally without the blessing of the church.
This current homosexual marriage debacle will force the church to address marriage as a holy sacrament.
I foresee holy matrimony without state legal contract as vital to the role of the church in society. In this way the church and the couple are able to achieve a condition of relationship outside the constraints of the state. Legal entanglements have been, I believe, the primary motivation for couples living together outside state controlled marriage.
In fact, I am considering creating a "Holy Matrimony Chapel" to allow couples to sanctify their love for each other and their commitment to raise children as a purely sacred act without benefit of government licensure. The state may no more control Holy Matrimony than they can control baptism, communion, burial or any other rite of the church. Indeed, let them try.