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Old 08-11-2017, 11:30 AM
Aquila Aquila is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 31,124
Re: Marriage Privatization:

An interesting letter:
David Novak

In my opinion, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clergy should stop officiating at civil marriage ceremonies altogether in those jurisdictions where same-sex couples have the right to register their unions as civil marriages. There are fundamental theological reasons for my stance having to do with the covenantal reality of marriage, but here I want to focus on political reasons.

Secularists have tremendous power in Canada and the United States. From them we hear increasingly about the secular “values,” especially egalitarianism. These “values” insist on the necessity of setting aside or redefining many traditional religious institutions, like heterosexual marriage. Indeed, secularist advocates now regularly castigate our religious traditions as being “discriminatory.”

Given this trend, how long will it be before my synagogue in Toronto will be forced by the court to allow a same-sex couple to be married in the sanctuary or have their wedding reception in the social hall? Not long, I fear. Clergy are now functioning as registers of civil marriage. We already know that other religious persons, whose job it is to officiate at civil marriages, have been forced out of their jobs altogether for refusing to register same-sex marriages (at least in Canada, where same-sex marriage is permitted throughout the country). The only difference between the two kinds of marriage registers, officially secular or officially religious, is the location of the respective weddings. Our legal vulnerability would be much less if my synagogue were no longer in the civil marriage “business” at all.

Even renouncing clergy’s role as register of civil marriages might not be enough. The day may yet come when purely religious weddings will have to be held clandestinely. It’s not hard to imagine that “anti-discriminatory” zealotry will insist on the duty of all officiants at any ceremony that solemnizes anything that calls itself a “marriage” (whether secular or religious) to do so for any couple who comes to them for this purpose. Those who refuse to do so will be penalized legally. As marriage is redefined by civil law, what’s to stop judges from requiring us all to conform to the new meaning?

Therefore, I suggest that faithful Jews, Christians, and Muslims work for the abolition of civil marriage altogether (wherever it has already lost its traditional definition), and for it to be replaced by civil unions. Since these civil unions need not involve any sexual relationship between the parties, there need be no concern about the state sanctioning what are illicit sexual unions by traditional standards, whose origins are admittedly religious. Like any contract, they could be worked out among the parties themselves. Of course, for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, marriage is much more than an ordinary civil contract, but by defining civil marriage down, as it were, we’re more likely to preserve its covenantal meaning in our religious traditions. A covenantal relationship is much deeper than a merely contractual one.

I think this is a realistic direction to take in the public discussion. There is less and less of a secular consensus today as to the definition of what “marriage” actually is. It is only in the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that “marriage” has a consistent definition (logically and historically) of what it is and what it is not. Only there can the fallacy of generalization (i.e., marriage being any officially sanctioned relationship two or more persons want it to be) be avoided. As such, why not leave the institution of marriage to the adherents of these venerable traditions (as in Israel)? Furthermore, isn’t the inclusion of same-sex unions in civil marriage still discriminatory, hence anti-egalitarian? And isn’t egalitarianism the value that liberals regularly invoke to justify the innovation of same-sex civil marriage? Why are polygamists excluded? Why is polyandry excluded? Why is “polyamory” (which involves more than one man and more than one woman) excluded? And what about people who feel intimate ties but don’t want to have sex with each other?

The clamor for same-sex civil marriage, when civil unions are readily available, seems to be beseeching the secular state for a blessing. (Indeed, several homosexuals have told me that they seek the blessing of the state because they feel they have been “cursed” by their families and their religious communities.) But the secular state is not and ought not be in the blessing business. Blessings have a uniquely religious meaning. So leave blessings to those who have a tradition in both receiving them and dispensing them. And, finally, as for the more liberal clergy (Jewish, Christian, and maybe Muslim, too) who do officiate at same-sex marriages (or even only “bless” them), they must be asked and ask themselves: What warrant do you have from your respective religious traditions (and the divine revelations upon which they are based) for engaging in such nontraditional, radical practices?

—David Novak holds the J. Richard and
Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies
at the University of Toronto.
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