“Welcome To Marriage Mart, Your Home Of Equality!”
By Mitch Berg
According to Senator Dan Hall, the DFL is about to propose a bill that would allow notary publics to perform civil weddings.
what this actually means is that the DFL campaign for “marriage equality” has been about making all forms of marriage worthless – a civil institution with all the more gravity involved in renewing your license tabs.
I know conservatives say there’s a case to be made for pushing back on this – and I think the “cheapen the institution of the family” lobby is going a bridge too far, even in Minnesota.
But even now with this proposal, I think the next step for supporters of the traditional family is obvious.
It’s time for people of faith to start pushing, hard, the idea of the “covenant marriage” – a marriage, even if only initiated between people of faith and ignoring the whole civil process, that holds the ideal and idea of marriage to a higher standard than the civil variety.
One of the problems with the debate about marriage in this past couple of decades has been that it’s been a little like debating which variety of 1972 Chevy Vega was worse. Marriage in general has been cheapened in the past 40 to 50 years – no fault divorce played its role, as did the changing secular notion of “family”. The civic idea of “family” has changed in our society, perhaps (in its current form) fatally. The state to which marriage was actually observed in our society has slipped to a point where it’s hardly a defensible institution, its present form.
Along with the drive on the part of many conservatives and people are faced to privatize marriage comes the imperative to make the religious institution of marriage demonstrably better thing that the civil, profane alternative.
April 1st, 2014 at 8:13 am
To give you an idea of how the left is working…..Firefox’s CEO supports traditional marriage, so there is a huge push in silicon valley to get him fired, even from within his company. So the left is saying that if you are a practicing Catholic, they will work to make sure you lose your job.
April 1st, 2014 at 10:23 am
I tend to see the idea of a civil marriage as more of a positive development, like the reasons I can see homosexual marriage in a positive light.
We heterosexuals, or presumed heterosexuals, have been doing a pretty bad job of maintaining sole custody of the practice of marriage. How many people do you know who are in romantic relationships and are “shacking up,” co-habitating, etc. without benefit of marriage? Same with out-of-wedlock births. Even when you factor out cultural norms and unintended pregnancy, the incidence of this is all too common.
Given that, I have a hard time criticizing a practice which seems to promote the vows/ sacrament/ civil process of marriage between two consenting, unrelated, human adults of sound mind. While these processes may not be as beneficial to society as a “traditional” marriage, all in all, we sure aren’t doing a good job of maintaining it.
April 1st, 2014 at 10:29 am
“the changing secular notion of “family””
Reminds me of the many “anything is a family” musical numbers from recent animated films.
April 1st, 2014 at 11:33 am
It’s worth noting that churches, at least those that believe the Bible, already have covenant marriage if only they will enforce it. That is, if someone comes for membership, you ask them about the status of their relationships. If they are un-Biblically divorced, you withhold membership until they uphold the marriage covenant they made.
And you do the same for current members. It’s worth noting for me that in the churches I’ve been a member of, divorce is extremely rare, and is generally accompanied by expulsion from the church, with the exception of those who are abandoned or victims of adultery. Matthew 18:15-19 works when it’s applied consistently.
April 1st, 2014 at 11:48 am
My daughter and son-in-law saw no need for the State’s blessing or permission for their union so they did not get a marriage license. They still had to file a notification form with the State which, IIRC, cost more than the license but the principle was worth it.
April 1st, 2014 at 12:09 pm
Two friends are on the horns of that dilemma. She is very devout Catholic and he is nearly as devout. She divorced from her short-term, childless Catholic marriage years ago, but cannot re-marry in her church unless she gets (buys) an annulment. I admire their adherence to the faith, although I suggested they just go civil and obtain the annulment at their leisure. I also admire, aside from the hypocrisy, the church’s making all aspect of marriage a process, and nothing to be entered into, or exited from, easily.
April 1st, 2014 at 1:51 pm
The confusion comes from using the same word to describe two entirely different concepts.
“Marriage” as used pre-1973 was a vow, an oath, a solemn promise To God, not just to your spouse. Neither the parties to the marriage nor the State of Minnesota had authority to terminate that promise. Marriage was assumed to be eternal so the nuclear family was deemed to be the fundamental organizational unit of society.
“Marriage” as used since No Fault Divorce was adopted, is a business agreement, a civil contract, like any other partnership. Either partner can dissolve the arrangement at whim. Marriage is temporary so the fundamental organizational unit of society is the individual (the Me Generation).
The societal implications resulting from the transformation from Us to Me are manifesting themselves now in broken homes, single parents, children in poverty, declining achievement, delinquency, crime, and abortion.
Giving notaries the power to sign marriage certificates isn’t even a Band-Aid solution to stop the bleeding, it’s more like applying leeches.
April 1st, 2014 at 2:16 pm
I’m a devout Catholic, but having seen what passes for marriage these days I’ve told my sons to delay marriage as long as possible. Your personality changes rapidly until your 30s, and until then getting hitched is really taking a massive chance with your future because of how family court runs. It’s still a huge chance in your 30s, but at least you’ve got a chance of being able to have a life and see your kids.
My daughters, on the other hand, know about their biological clocks and how much easier it is to have kids, and their relatively strong position if things don’t work out and are told to marry early.
Sexist? No, practical. But then again, I’m an engineer. Marriage for young men isn’t a status symbol or life improvement, it’s like playing Russian Roulette with 3 loaded chambers. And we won’t even go where divorce leaves kids except to say that studies show it’s easier for kids to recover from the death of a parent than a divorce.
April 1st, 2014 at 2:37 pm
To give you an idea of how the left is working…..Firefox’s CEO supports traditional marriage, so there is a huge push in silicon valley to get him fired, even from within his company. So the left is saying that if you are a practicing Catholic, they will work to make sure you lose your job.
Tolerance, as long as you believe the same as we do. Otherwise, prepare for derision, hate, boycott, expulsion (attempted), penalty (if not now, the idea will gain traction soon) and more.
April 1st, 2014 at 3:05 pm
SuperAmerica clerks can marry secularists for all I care.