MARRIAGE IS A RELIGIOUS SUPERSTITION DESPITE ITS SECULAR ROBES
Marriage flouts the distinction between the Church and State for marriage is a
superstition and the state is safeguarding it though it could safeguard similar
arrangements that are not as demeaning and may not do so. The only justification
for marriage is that some God commanded it therefore though the state might not
realise it, it is giving in to superstition by making it its cornerstone and by
looking after it. The state has to forbid fraud but marriage is a fraud so the
state should not sanction or guard it. That means when anybody is prosecuted for
fraud that the state is persecuting them for it is discriminating against them –
some fraudsters get away and some don’t just because the state prefers one kind
of fraud to the other.
The state is saying the law of the land binds people in marriage. The truth is
the law can do no such thing for the law is really just composed of the
decisions of fallible men and women and it can be fooled. It is not much of a
bind in that case for it rests too heavily on guesses and human opinion.
The state in the past used to obligate people to be members of the state
religion and no other. We all agree today that that was wrong. Just because the
state protects something or commands something doesn’t mean it should. If we can
get away with it why should we listen to the commands of the state? If we can
live with our partners as if we were married without being married then what’s
stopping us? The question is, if we go through a marriage ceremony are we
obligated by that ceremony and vows to stay with the person we married? The
answer is no. It is love, sharing lives together and treating each other
reasonably well that obligates us to stay with the person not the ceremony. To
deny this is to say that the law really has power to bind one person to another.
If you are truly committed to your partner you do not need marriage to express
this publically. Marriage cannot make a commitment more committed. Married or
not, you can be as committed as ever. If you are committed you are committed.
The laws of the land are only human opinion. God - if there is one - doesn’t
have opinions. He knows what is what.
Human authority can be fooled and wrong and it cannot bind a man and woman
together in matrimony. You need God to bind people in marriage right not the Law
for he cannot be fooled and we belong to him and are his property and he has
supreme authority. So marriage then is a declaration that the Church should
dominate the state and that atheists and Buddhists who do not believe in God
should be treated as second-class citizens. It is also a declaration that civil
(ie non-religious) marriage should get no protection which is a grave form of
discrimination. True separation of Church and state requires that marriage be
demoted from its legal status.
To say that God binds my marriage together is to stay that it is my belief in
God that binds the marriage together. God - to religion even if he exists - is a
belief not a person. He might be a person and really exist but it is not him I
reach but my belief. I can’t get to him. My belief is really God for me and it
is my creation so admitting that only God can give a marriage vow authority
solves nothing. A marriage I try to give authority to by my belief, deserves
less protection than one that gets authority from the state. Also it is human
authority that tells us what God says. To believe in the Bible as the word of
God is to take the word of the authors and the defenders of the faith for it and
is really to believe in them and to put them above God.
STATE RECOGNITION OF MARRIAGE IS RIFE WITH HYPOCRISY AND CONTRADICTIONS
The state making marriage binding by its decrees is laughable for the state just
gives a few benefits for getting married and no penalty for breaking the vows
and often gives cohabiters more rights than married couples. It is not a binding
together at all when it is treated so trivially. The state does not punish for
committing adultery or breaking the marriage vows in any other way. It merely
enforces the property rights of marriage. The state does not punish people for
“living in sin” though this weakens marriage and the prestige it has. The
protection then that marriage gets can be easily withdrawn for it is more than
half done away with anyway. The only legal ramification for a marriage breakdown
is a loss of some benefits from the state but even that in many countries is
minimal. It's a ramification but not a punishment. If it is then some strange
conclusions appear. Here is one. If a woman leaves her husband for beating her
up she is punished for it by losing whatever benefits come from marriage! In
Ireland, live-in-lovers used to be better off than married couples. To leave
your lover then is a bigger punishment than leaving her if you are married to
her!
The state must be pressured to abandon the concept of the married couple as its
foundation and to stop seeing marriage as legally binding. It will be difficult
for the state makes a lot of money out of divorce and annulment cases which is
probably the reason it is so worried about wedlock. The fact is that people will
still go into contracts relating to how property is divided between them and
still need the law and to give it hefty fees when there is a dispute and an
infringement so money shouldn’t be an issue.
When religion claims the right to say that divorce is wrong and that marriage is
good, religion is asserting the right to dictate to the state for the state is
being accused of being immoral and unjust if it does not protect marriage and
does not ban divorce. Most things are right under some conditions so religion
can only justify being so stubborn by saying that God told it those things and
God knows best for he is brighter and better informed than us. So the state then
is to be subjected to the authority of God. In reality it means subjected to the
authority of those who speak for God for we never hear the word of God except
through men meaning that it could be their word for all we know. Churches,
especially ones like the Roman Catholic Church, that claim to have a superior
hotline to God regard it as blasphemy to say such things and to seek to get the
state to afford no unique rights to marriage while they themselves commit the
following blasphemy: “We do not speak for God or do miracles but God does these
things through us”. What is the point of saying this when no difference to us is
made if it is them or God for we don’t know and faiths that contradict them say
the same thing? They are trying to deceive us again. Our Lady of Medjugorje take
note!
Finally
Marriage does not belong to religion or the state. It preceded them. It belongs
to the couple. It does not belong to all married couples but to each couple. If
marriage is to belong to the state or the Church, then it should belong to the
state more than the Church. We need government but we do not need religion.
It is none of the states business if a couple is committed or not. Thus marriage
is not its affair. Let couples do their contracts. There is no need for marriage
to be legally binding. The Australian High Court redefined marriage in 2013 as
"a consensual union formed between natural persons in accordance with legally
prescribed requirements which is not only a union the law recognises as intended
to endure and be terminable only in accordance with law but also a union to
which the law accords a status affecting and defining mutual rights and
obligations.” If marriage means that then it is the state's business but many
question if that is marriage or just calling a set-up marriage.
WORKS CONSULTED
A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Catholic Truth Society, Westminster, 1985
Believing in God, PJ McGrath, Wolfhound Press, Dublin, 1995
Biblical Dictionary and Concordance of the New American Bible, Confraternity of
Christian Doctrine, Washington DC, 1971
Divorce, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1946
Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, Uta Ranke Heinmann, Penguin, London, 1991
Moral Questions, Bishops Conference, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1971
New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Catholic University of America and the
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
Preparing for a Mixed Marriage, Irish Episcopal Conference, Veritas, Dublin,
1984
Rome has Spoken, A Guide to Forgotten Papal Statements and How They Have Changed
Through the Centuries, Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben (Editors), Crossroad
Publishing, New York, 1998
Shattered Vows, Exodus From the Priesthood, David Rice, Blackstaff Press,
Belfast, 1990
Sex & Marriage A Catholic Perspective, John M Hamrogue C SS R, Liguori,
Illinois, 1987
The Emancipation of a Freethinker, Herbert Ellsworth Cory, The Bruce Publishing
Company, Milwaukee, 1947
“The Lord Hateth Putting Away!” and Reflections on Marriage and Divorce The
Committee of the Christadelphian, Birmingham, 1985
The WWW
How to Fight the Religious Right, Brian Elroy McKinley
http://elroy.net/ehr/fighttheright.html
