Thursday, November 2, 2006

What's faith got to do with it?

My apologies in advance for one of my rare political, not game related, blog posts. If you think that game bloggers shouldn't have political opinions (aren't gamers citizens?), or you simply don't like politics, you might want to stop reading here.

I've just read an article about Canada, where politics are usually much more secular than in the USA. But the same-sex marriage debate suddenly has introduced a much larger than usual dose of religion into politics. It seems that most of the arguments against same-sex marriage are faith-based. Now that surprises me. What has faith to do with the legal status of marriage?

Marriage has always also been a religious ritual, and many people still marry in church. But the institution of marriage is much, much older than any of the existing faiths. And no religion has a monopoly on marriage, you can be married whether you are christian, muslim, hindu, buddhist, any other faith, or even atheist. You can marry somebody of a different faith than you. And the civil authorities recognize marriages without regard to the faith of the two persons. So why can't we discuss the legal status of same-sex marriage without argueing whether or not the christian God would approve of it? The gay couple in question might not even *be* christian, so why should they care about christian morality? And why should the christian church care if two muslim men want to marry?

The only thing the religious arguments in this debate do is to confuse the issue, to dilute the secular arguments against same-sex marriage. Because even if you are not a fundamental christian, you might well argue against same-sex marriage. For example a case can be made that marriage is a form of "contract" signed between a man and a women for the economic security of their children. Back in the middle ages being childless was one of the few possible reasons for a divorce. And while taking away marriage rights from childless couples would be impossible, you could well argue that a same-sex couple, which doesn't even have the biological possibility to conceive a child, should be denied these rights. I'm not going to take sides here, I'm just saying that the matter can be debated without religious arguments.

Or if you absolutely want to bring in religion, you could totally separate the civil legal status from the religious one. You could stop using the term marriage in any secular, civil documents. People would get a "civil union" registered with the state, and that would be all that would legally matter. This civil union could be same or different sex, depending on secular laws. And if people wanted to have a ceremony of "marriage", they could do so with their church or whatever other organization, without any legal consequences. And then every church could decide whether they would be willing to hold this marriage ceremony for same-sex couples or not, based on their faith. But that would have no effect whatsoever on legal questions such as marital property rights or heritage.

There aren't any theocracies left in the Western world, with good reason. A person's secular rights and status should not depend on his faith, or on the faith of others. A church must have the right to deny a couple a religious marriage ceremony based on reasons of that churches creed, thus a catholic or evangelical priest not willing to marry a same-sex couple in a religious ceremony is totally understandable. But that is a matter of that churches faith, and should not have any consequences on the legal status of that couples civil union. And the discussion about whether a state should or shouldn't permit civil unions between two members of the same sex should not be influenced by any prevailing religion.

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