Knocking Marriage with a Sugarpacket
Karissa Kilgore posts a good question:
Should the government, which insists upon the "separation of church and state" in even the most extreme forms (removing "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance--don't get me started), be allowed to favor one form or marriage over another (church vs. court marriages), or even have an opinion on the topic to begin with?
On Karissa's blog, I left a brief comment hinting that "separation of church and state" may not mean what most people think it means. Would anybody care to see what Google has to say about that phrase? I'll give you a hint -- it's a paraphrse from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson.
Yes, that's all true, but the constitution leaves much room for interpretation. For example, the courts were actually never given the power to interpret laws; but a court case came up and they found an unconstitutional law and had to throw it out. Who else would do it? And if you are interested in political discourse (and even if you aren't), the premise of the constitution (the Preamble) is based on justice. Right-wing conservatives take just as many political liberties as liberals. If you were a true republican/conservative, morals would not be an issue because what conservatism was based on is that government should have as little to do with peoples personal lives as possible. Therefore there would be a certain air of "seperation" in a private sector such as churches. AND... PLEASE let me know where in the constitution it says that the state has the right to discriminate who gets to marry and who doesn't. If you think only the church should have the authority to give marriage licenses, then why do you need an amendment to ban same-sex marriages? I'll have you know that there are at least three branches of Christianity that will award licenses to gays, if it were not illegal. (Unitarian Universalist, Methodist, and Lutheran) But it only depends on the head of the Church. And... I will end with the fact that the church has made many mistakes in the past: racism, sexism, and agism were all once held onto by the churches; however, the church had to change along with the rest of America. Just because something is seen as right does not make it just. This is not about the corruption of morals; it's about equal rights for all people who have the same duties as all other people, but get no benefits in return. Thank you for your time. Have a nice day. q:
In the original letter, Thomas Jefferson appears to be expressing satisfaction at the enactment of the Establishment Clause. His own personal view of the matter suggests to me that he saw government as properly existing and acting as totally neutral in matters religious—existing, as it were, in a separate realm.
One of my favorite writers, Ken Wilber, has written at some length about the importance of the `separation of powers' that occurred as a result of the modern era. Whereas before the Church made civil law, and could punish or suppress intellectual or artistic endeavors, modernity separated art/science, government, and religion into separate spheres with separated powers. While in many ways this separation has turned into a sort of pathological dissociation, I still feel that this is and will remain the great nobility of the modern era.
*blushes* wow, that puts me in the spotlight :)
thanks :-D I'm definetly getting some interesting and provoking feedback.