MARRIAGE RITES AND WRONGS: William Raspberry

...The church has no interest in joint filings, and the state no interest in declarations of love or religious affiliation. To the one, marriage is a sacred rite; to the other, it is the sanctioning of a contractual relationship. The church may care whether he is a philanderer or she a gold-digger, or whether there's too great a gap in their ages. The state's interests run to the validity of the contract.
And what has any of this to do with same-sex marriage? Maybe if we can get past such churchly considerations as God's will as expressed in Leviticus, we can make peace with the bifurcation Lewis urged in his 1952 book: Let the church handle the sacrament, the state the contract.

If we could get there, we might even calm down long enough to ask ourselves what would really be the risk in same-sex marriages. I mean, if our sexuality is pretty much hard-wired, how likely is it that legitimizing gay or lesbian marriages would tempt straight people into homosexuality? On the other hand, keeping the status quo seems unlikely to turn gays or lesbians into straights. Maybe what we are principally talking about is the effect of marriage on couples who are already involved in sexual relationships. We believe it's a good thing for heterosexual couples to commit to fidelity. Do we think it's a bad thing for homosexual couples to do so?

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posted by Eve at 5:29 PM | link

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