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JamesCollins
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Personally, I think we are fighting a losing battle. The best we can hope for is the government doesn’t try to force churches to perform and recognize gay marriages. This seems to be Satan’s ground game.
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Corki
Guest
Don’t aim so low. I think there is still hope that this will be left to the states. There is precedent since common law marriages are handled that way. One circuit (and the 10th at that) does not federal law make.
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JamesCollins
Guest
Oklahoma is discussing getting out of the marriage business altogether and just having people get a lawyer and make their own personal contracts apart from the state. They are considering no longer issuing marriage licenses after the court ruled they had to conduct gay marriages.
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frizzgrig
Guest
I think the tactic being talked about in Oklahoma might end up being the end of the argument. The state doesn’t recognize any marriage. Same sex, heterosexual, nada.
The implications:
Leave it to the religious folks to define marriage in their tradition. State does not regulate who can live in a dwelling together. People can file durable power of attorney documents and wills to handle inheritance and other items. Children would be recognized and take the father’s name unless the father is unknown. “Family” benefits would cover the individual adult and his/her children (no partners). No joint tax returns.
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JamesCollins
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That would wind up costing families a lot of extra money in taxes and lawyer fees. The traditional family would be seriously disrupted.
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Corki
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The traditional family would be seriously disrupted either way.
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NoWings
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That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. The equal protection clause is still valid even if Oklahoma wants to stick its head in the sand. People that want to get married will simply go to a different state and Oklahoma will be required to recognize it.
Fighting gay marriage is a losing battle and a dumb one. Millions of dollars of resources wasted on something that doesn’t affect heterosexual marriage at all. They’d be better off spending it on something productive.
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NoWings
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Right, right. Just like anti-miscegenation laws disrupted the traditional family, too.
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zaffiroborant
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The traditional family would not be disrupted by gay marriage anymore than it is disrupted by other behavior that is acceptable in society. Gambling, drinking, prostitution, and such have been going on forever, and while they have an impact within an individual family most families go on with their lives suffering no ill effects from the behavior of others. It seems to me all families end up like mine saying something along the lines of “I don’t care what Betsy’s family does, we don’t do that”.
What OK is talking about would have an impact as Frizzgrig and JamesCollins pointed out. Having to see a lawyer to draw up all the legal documents to cover what marriage covers would more than likely price low income people out. Also women chose to be SAHM’s and husbands died without managing to save for retirement would be left without any sort of support. Both my mother and my MIL managed in their later years on a small SS income, this would be unavailable to those women in OK who decided to devote their lives to their children. I agree this is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard of.
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iepuras
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It is far from stupid. It’s quite brilliant actually. Oklahoma is actually fighting gay marriage they only way they can. Now the state legislature just needs to change the rest of their laws (tax, family, probate, etc) and eliminate spousal benefits for employees to eliminate the concept of marriage entirely from their laws. The homosexual lobby then won’t have anything to sue the state over. Not even equal protection because heterosexual and homosexual relationships will be equally irrelevant in the matter of law. If all states did this then the homosexual lobby will have to find something else to do. Maybe they can do something productive like helping the poor.
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iepuras
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I think states should get out of the marriage business. If they would like, they can have civil unions for all kinds of couples, even couples that do not have any kind of sexual relationship (think, the little old ladies whose children don’t care about them but take care of each other). Couples who want to get married can go to whichever church that will do it. It will take a different way of thinking but it is doable without causing disruption and forcing every couple to hire an attorney.
I don’t have an issue with homosexual “marriage” per se. However, I am concerned that the homosexual lobby will take this and then move on to pushing their agenda on our children in schools or preventing counselors from helping those with same-sex attraction who actually want to live chaste lives which is what we are seeing in California.
Oklahoma has the right idea. If we are going to reinvent the establishment clause of the 1st amendment to mean “separation of church and state” instead of meaning state church, then we must expect government to have no role in the historically religious sacrament/rite of marriage. IOW, separate the state from the church sacrament/rite of marriage.
People that want to get married can do it now. They simply have to find a church that performs the kind of marriage they want. There are no government restrictions in that respect. So the issue isn’t marriage, but the government recognitions, tax status, benefit status, etc. connected to it. Eliminate those ( they can be eliminated without hurting families and individuals) and I suspect the interest in marriage outside of the religious setting, where it belongs in the first place, will fade.
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GaryTaylor
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Your welcome to start your own state by state gay-rights and marriage church. 
I guess we’ll all be appealing to a higher authority than the state. The Bible should make for a good conversation.
I guess we’ll all be appealing to a higher authority than the state. The Bible should make for a good conversation.
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steido01
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Those [gay “marriage” advocates] who subscribe to a “Living and Breathing” Constitution may need to re-think their preferred mode of reading when they realize that “reinterpreting” the First Amendment leads to such an end! Oh, it’d be terrific theatre watching them wrestle with that one.
On a serious note, I think you’re right, sadly. Our secular governments are incapable of defending marriage. It would be best if it were left to the undisturbed church.
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GaryTaylor
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zaffiroborant
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Mr. Dershowitz’s idea could be implemented by the churches right now without having to wait for the state to do anything. Every church could fix this connection right now by not performing marriages for the state. The Catholic Church and the LDS have right now a set up for dealing with couples who are married by the state and then want to have it formalized by the Church. This is exactly what the Catholic Church did when it came to adoption by homosexual couples. Instead of complaining about what the state does churches should take matters into their own hands and address it on their terms.
The involvement of the state in marriage is not a recent development, the state was involved in marriage in both ancient Greece and Rome, even in the early Church marriage was a matter for the state. The Catholic Church had no standard wedding rite until the Council of Trent, so no marriage has not always been the purview of religion. There are dozens of civil issues that marriage addresses that the Church has no authority over, taxes, social security ( the only acknowledgement by society that women who chose to stay home and raise children performed a worth while service), simplified untaxed inheritance to name just a few, marriage is just as much a civil issue as it is a religious one.
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rcwitness
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The Church is not fighting “gay marriage”. It just will not recognize it as possible. No matter how much men desire one another, God will not join them as one flesh.
The Church may indeed have to suffer the persecutions of the world which hates Jesus, but She cannot condone and sacrilege Holy Matrimony.
Michael
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Lion_IRC
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It’s an interesting legal ploy but it doesn’t remedy the problem of a democratic majority expressing their will to define “the family” according to a desired social outcomes.
The State will still need to regulate adoption and child custody. They wont let the Church decide whether two gay men can adopt a child.
The State will still want to reserve its right to enact legislation that promotes certain ideals and moral positions with respect to family law and reproductive rights.
The State needs to regulate marriage for the same reason it needs to regulate immigration and naturalisation. What will happen with marriages of legal convenience if The State says we don’t care if your husband/wife is a Canadian/Mexican/etc. or if you don’t actually love each other.
The State will still unavoidably want/need to legislate matters of public sexual behaviour and identity. (Can male transgender people use the female bathroom at the public swimming pool?)
The LGBTQ agenda isn’t really about marriage and family. It is about sexual identity and sexual freedom and the desire - not for tolerance - but public approval and endorsement.
Moreover, the gay lobby will not accept discrimination by the Church anymore than they would accept discrimination by The State. They are STILL going to demand that The State enforce non-discrimination in EVERY part of society.
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GaryTaylor
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Its not intended to, the state could define their own idea of a “marriage”, family takes on other meaning I doubt the state is looking to define. The Church has its own identity of “marriage” which in fact the state used in conjunction with the Church. The state then decided in “separation of Church to state” to widen their definition to which it is now “different” to what the Church considers a marriage. The Cruz of the matter here is you can’t have it both ways. Otherwise you have the State now defining what is a Church and without separation.
Has nothing to do with marriage in the Church or separation of Church and state.
Still has nothing to do with what the “Church” defines as marriage in which there is a separation, in fact its there intentionally.
The state needs to come up with its own theory and definition of marriage to which these other points are non contingent.
What does this have to do with the state telling the Church what they have to accept.
In this particular case Its about the definition of marriage. Point blank, to which the Church disagrees with the state, the rest isn’t contingent to the point.
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The Church doesn’t perform gay marriage, never has , never will, and countries have came and gone. This equal rights social experiment has nothing to do with the Church. The discrimination your speaking of is forcing the Church to listen to the state with issues of faith and morals.
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