Covenant Marriage Contracts Vs Gay Marriage

[Aloysius]

Covenant Marriage Contracts are basically contracts between two people to basically opt out of the modern liberalized divorce laws, I think that states should recognize these covenant marriage contracts and enforce them, and people that sign them therefore should be less able to get a divorce. generally states have not been willing to enforce these contracts, so I think some type of legislation explicitly recognizing the rights of people to enter into such an agreement should be established. Such contracts should obviously contain provisions for separation in case of abuse and such, but not permanent divorce (except for a provision Catholics would put in allowing for permanent separation if an annulment is granted)

With states enforcing them, I actually think then canon law should require them. Seems pretty basic: if you truly mean your marriage vows, you should have no problem opting out of liberalized divorce laws, intending your marriage to be indissoluble, what God has joined together let no man tear asunder.

I think we should focus on getting covenant marriage contracts recognized, rather than focusing so much about the already failed system of marriage licenses. The covenant marriage should hold the privilege of traditional marriage and all the respect and esteem generally due to it, and all those folks who are getting married without covenant marriage contracts, ie leaving themselves with the possibility of an out, well each individual case is different but I'd say a lot of people don't have the proper intentions for valid sacramental marriage anyway, many people don't really see it as permanent and indissoluble. In fact when gay activists call us on the hypocrisy of saying that gay marriage would threaten the sanctity of marriage by pointing to the widespread de-sanctification of 'marriage', I think they have a bit of a point. we lost the battle to defend traditional marriage when liberalized divorce options were permitted. the main focus of the effort to defend/restore traditional marriage should be far less about focusing on the efforts of some to establish "gay marriage" "rights", and far more on re-establishing our right to enter into an indissoluble marriage. we are currently not afforded that right, the state refuses to enforce contracts between two free people who agree by contract not to divorce; I think there's a far more fruitful direction to take the battle in by fighting for the right to make our marriages more indissoluble.

Obviously we don't want gay marriage to be on equal footing with heterosexual marriage, we don't want it encouraged or whatever; ultimately I personally think people should have the right to enter into contracts establishing anyone they want (regardless of sexual relationship or not) as their next of kin, as the person permitted to be notified and have access to their medical records and really most of the things that are most complained about. but other than that, I think we likely face a losing battle on avoiding gay 'marriage' eventually being established on equal footing with the straight 'marriages' currently licensed by the states, but like I said, I think we lost the battle on state licensed marriages a long time ago anyway. if we really want to be seen as defending traditional marriages, we really need to try to restore traditional marriage by promoting the recognition and enforcement of covenant marriage contracts. That's the real privileged position traditional marriage should have.

[Byzantine]

Definitely interesting...

[Papist]

I never heard of such a thing. Where do these covenant marriage contracts take place? How can a marriage be a covenant(exchange of persons) and contract(exchange of property)? I always believed that when a couple enters in a covenant marriage that it comes with the rejection of modern liberalized divorce laws.

[Aloysius]

I think of a contract as merely an agreement between two people, it doesn't necessarily have to involve an exchange of property. That's the sense in which I'm using the term "contract" anyway. from a civil point of view then, all marriages are contracts. I'm not really contrasting that term against "covenant", "covenant marriages" is just the label that's been given to this concept of subverting the modern divorce laws.

the term "covenant marriage" refers to, rather than merely getting a marriage license, the couple also both sign away their right to no-fault divorces and all such things. basically they both sign a legally binding agreement that binds them not to seek such divorces, and if the state recognizes and enforces such an agreement (contract), then they are ineligible to file for divorce on such grounds.

According to the ever reliable wikipedia lol, it seems legit enough here, only Louisiana, Arkansas, and Arizona actually have given legal recognition to covenant marriages, it notes that people with regular marriages in those states may choose to change the status of the marriage if they wish to. although I was under the impression that there were people in some places promoting the idea of drawing up your own contract agreement to make your marriage a covenant marriage but I don't remember where I saw that. it would basically entail just another piece of paperwork in addition to the marriage license, ultimately I think it could just be merged it so that there was a different class of marriage altogether. basically if a man and a woman want to sign a contract that says they relinquish their rights to divorce (but leave a provision for separation in case of abuse), they should have the right to sign such an agreement and the state should be able to enforce it; ie, we ought to be able to have the kinds of legally indissoluble marriages that existed prior to the liberalizing of divorce laws if we so choose.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Aloysius

[Era Might]

Too complicated. Just be faithful to your wife, grow old, and die. Why entangle yourself in a bunch of unnecessary legal provisions.

[Aloysius]

well a marriage license in and of itself is an unnecessary legal provision from some point of view...

it's not all that complex, it's just basically opting out of ever having possible recourse to divorce. making such marriage "licenses"/"contracts", whatever you want to call them, possible is to restore actual indissoluble marriage to the legal system. it would establish those marriages in their right place in society, the Church wants society to recognize marriage: this is the way for society to recognize true, indissoluble marriage. whatever else they end up defining putting through the already dissoluble "marriage licenses" of the state, like gay marriage or whatever, if the state recognized and allowed such marriages and canon law required them, then we would have restored traditional marriage in the civil law.

basically the movement that focuses on being anti-gay-marriage talks a lot about defending traditional marriage on the legal/civil front. what I'm saying is that they're missing a step: we first need to restore traditional marriage to the legal and civil order before we could really defend it, because the current state of divorce laws has made the civil contract of marriage into a dissoluble contract (for irreconcilable differences or whatever), a covenant marriage contract restores it to the civil order.

I'm not so much advocating that people go out and draw up these documents necessarily; doing so would be nothing more than showing your support for the idea I suppose; ultimately whatever the state thinks of your marriage is irrelevant as long as you know it is an unbreakable sacramental bond. the sacramental Church marriage is the real marriage, this is just a question of in what way the state/civil society should recognize and promote traditional marriage as such, and I think a special legal status to "covenant marriages" that exempts those couples from ever potentially having recourse to no fault divorce, et cetera, (by their own choice, though I would like to see the Church actually require it of Church marriages). divorce put a hole in the ship of civil marriage long ago, and it is clearly sinking (and unless something is done, it will likely sink into putting gay marriage on equal civil footing with all civil marriage); there's a couple of options: one is simply bailing on civil marriage altogether, reform canon law to say that sacramental marriage need not include state marriage recognition, or at least provide indults against having official marriage licenses to all the countries that have started to have gay marriage; let's call this the Ron Paul route, but the Church is unlikely to ever go that route (unless push comes to shove and they're absolutely being threatened to perform gay marriages which I don't think will happen in the USA but could in other places); legal advocacy for the creation of covenant marriage legislation and subsequent canonical legislation changing the requirement to get a state marriage license to a requirement to sign a covenant marriage contract in places where the state would enforce such a contract, that's my proposed solution for preserving the institution of marriage in civil life.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Aloysius

[Papist]

I think I understand your point. However, it seems that you are using covenant where it does not belong. What you explain just does not jive with what I understand to be a covenant relationship Seems to be absent of the 'marriage made in Heaven'.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1353604492' post='2514785']basically the movement that focuses on being anti-gay-marriage talks a lot about defending traditional marriage on the legal/civil front. what I'm saying is that they're missing a step: we first need to restore traditional marriage to the legal and civil order before we could really defend it, because the current state of divorce laws has made the civil contract of marriage into a dissoluble contract (for irreconcilable differences or whatever), a covenant marriage contract restores it to the civil order.
[/quote]
A big factor in "traditional marriage" was economic dependence...women today can work and do pretty much anything else they want to do. There was also the social side of that, where men were the authority throughout society (only men could vote, etc). I don't think the kind of symbolic actions you're suggesting are going to do much to restore a society that no longer exists.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Era Might

[Aloysius]

that's just the legal term for it. the word 'covenant' is used in many different contexts, the phrase "covenant marriage" refers to this particular legal construct, as I have heard it used.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Covenant+Marriage

Looks like the existing covenant marriage laws in Louisiana basically allow for divorce under the very strict conditions that divorce was once allowed for, ie it only restricts against the no-fault kind but allows divorce only if some fault can be proven. That's probably sensible enough, though I was envisioning the provisions to simply allow for some degree of separation only under extreme circumstances, and only allowing divorce if an annulment were granted. I think when I read up on this a long time ago I was more under the impression that the terms were set by the couple rather than a pre-constructed category by the state, so I was envisioning that the Church would have a standard version of it; but it looks like as it has actually been established, it's more like a second category with regular marriage being the other category, but both of them well defined. I'd prefer a system more in which the state would enforce the terms set by the couple (and the Church would require certain terms for a Church wedding)... hmm...

[Aloysius]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1353605110' post='2514798']
A big factor in "traditional marriage" was economic dependence...women today can work and do pretty much anything else they want to do. There was also the social side of that, where men were the authority throughout society (only men could vote, etc). I don't think the kind of symbolic actions you're suggesting are going to do much to restore a society that no longer exists.
[/quote]
I'm not talking about some bourgeois "traditional" fantasy here, mate, it was the upper classes in which women became caged birds in yellow wallpapered rooms, I'm not at all talking about that or idealizing that for a second. restoring traditional marriage means restoring the ability to have an indissoluble civil contract between two people, in which they both set in stone absolutely in legal terms "until death do us part".

there is nothing inherant to 'traditional marriage' that requires economic dependence. it was perhaps a "big factor" in industrial revolution middle and upper class marriages but there's nothing inherent about it, what is inherent to marriage is economic interdependence, and that will take the form of many different possible gender roles which in today's society means both spouses usually being enslaved to meaningless jobs instead of just the husband.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1353605747' post='2514802']
I'm not talking about some bourgeois "traditional" fantasy here, mate, it was the upper classes in which women became caged birds in yellow wallpapered rooms, I'm not at all talking about that or idealizing that for a second. restoring traditional marriage means restoring the ability to have an indissoluble civil contract between two people, in which they both set in stone absolutely in legal terms "until death do us part".

there is nothing inherant to 'traditional marriage' that requires economic dependence. it was perhaps a "big factor" in industrial revolution middle and upper class marriages but there's nothing inherent about it, what is inherent to marriage is economic interdependence, and that will take the form of many different possible gender roles which in today's society means both spouses usually being enslaved to meaningless jobs instead of just the husband.
[/quote]
If you take "traditional marriage" as some "thing" in itself, then you could speak of something being "required" of it. But marriage is just one form of social arrangement that arises out of the entire social structure. Divorce is freely available today because America is an individualistic society, and marriage reflects that.

Of course, the "economic dependence" I was referring to is a product of industrialization, wage economy, etc. But "traditional marriage" was always a power relation stacked in favor of the man, in whatever form that took (well, that's not universally true, I'm sure one could find exceptions in matriarchal societies, etc).

If we are speaking of "Christian" marriage, then there is precious little that would could speak of in terms of law, since St. Paul's teaching on marriage is rooted on spiritual principles rather than social arrangements.

My main issue, I guess, is treating "traditional marriage" as some "thing" in itself, as though it could be conceived apart from the social relations it mirrored.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Era Might

[stevil]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1353581918' post='2514735']
Covenant Marriage Contracts are basically contracts between two people to basically opt out of the modern liberalized divorce laws, I think that states should recognize these covenant marriage contracts and enforce them, and people that sign them therefore should be less able to get a divorce. generally states have not been willing to enforce these contracts, so I think some type of legislation explicitly recognizing the rights of people to enter into such an agreement should be established. Such contracts should obviously contain provisions for separation in case of abuse and such, but not permanent divorce (except for a provision Catholics would put in allowing for permanent separation if an annulment is granted)
[/quote]
I don't think governments ought to play religion. As a tax payer I wouldn't want to fund the administration and enforcement of this.

But, your church can support this Covenant Marriage Contract, it won't be legally binding but some Catholics deem their church stuff to be more important than law anyways.

[Aloysius]

by using the term "traditional marriage" I was latching onto the terminology used by arguments against gay marriage, it wasn't meant to be all that well-defined a term, there are ambiguities when you attach the term "traditional" to anything; I'm obviously thinking of the Catholic theological and canonical views of marriage, not as a particular historical context of what St. Paul taught or what St. Augustine taught, but what the Church herself teaches. I deal with enough deconstruction of terms all the time in my anthropology studies, basically everything means nothing haha, but that's a maddening conversation to have so for these purposes I am proudly establishing the preconceptions of the general sensus fidelium and the moral teachings of the Magisterium for my terminology, deal with my terms on those bases, I make no claim to perfect continuity with historical forms of marriage, all social institutions change through time but the moral principles we are discussing are the subject matter of the continuous journey of the Church in building the Kingdom of God on earth.

whatever the reasons are for easy access to divorce, there should be the option of a form of marriage that doesn't have easy access to divorce, we should demand the right to such a form of marriage that we can voluntarily enter into if we wish to.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1353607689' post='2514818']
I don't think governments ought to play religion. As a tax payer I wouldn't want to fund the administration and enforcement of this.

But, your church can support this Covenant Marriage Contract, it won't be legally binding but some Catholics deem their church stuff to be more important than law anyways.
[/quote]
I know you don't want there to be any government at all, but so long as there is one of the minimal functions most everyone recognizes is that governments enforce contract law. if you sign a contract and you break that contract, that's illegal. if there is to be any government at all, that is basic; and why shouldn't the government be willing to enforce a contract like this? it's a free voluntary agreement between two people, and so long as the government is accepted as existing to enforce contract law, then there should be no problem with enforcing these forms of contracts.

especially since it would really cost no money or time to do so; at least probably less than court costs for divorce proceedings and such like. instead of having the standard marriage license on file, you'd have your covenant marriage contract on file, so if you tried to file for a quick divorce on the basis of irreconcilable differences or something the courts would say "hold on mate, doesn't look like you qualify for divorce, and no divorce would take place.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1353607920' post='2514819']
by using the term "traditional marriage" I was latching onto the terminology used by arguments against gay marriage, it wasn't meant to be all that well-defined a term, there are ambiguities when you attach the term "traditional" to anything; I'm obviously thinking of the Catholic theological and canonical views of marriage, not as a particular historical context of what St. Paul taught or what St. Augustine taught, but what the Church herself teaches. I deal with enough deconstruction of terms all the time in my anthropology studies, basically everything means nothing haha, but that's a maddening conversation to have so for these purposes I am proudly establishing the preconceptions of the general sensus fidelium and the moral teachings of the Magisterium for my terminology, deal with my terms on those bases, I make no claim to perfect continuity with historical forms of marriage, all social institutions change through time but the moral principles we are discussing are the subject matter of the continuous journey of the Church in building the Kingdom of God on earth.

whatever the reasons are for easy access to divorce, there should be the option of a form of marriage that doesn't have easy access to divorce, we should demand the right to such a form of marriage that we can voluntarily enter into if we wish to.
[/quote]
Well, I will defer to your terms and let you hash them out with someone who shares them with you. But to me the idea seems like an iron chastity belt (forgive the bad simile lol).

[stevil]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1353607920' post='2514819']
whatever the reasons are for easy access to divorce, there should be the option of a form of marriage that doesn't have easy access to divorce, we should demand the right to such a form of marriage that we can voluntarily enter into if we wish to.
[/quote]
Some countries allow employment contracts to be written on an individual basis, defining things that used to be held across the board for all people of that society. It appears to me that you are advocating a similar thing for marriage contracts.

Of course this will mean that people will tailor their own marriage definition based on their own wants, needs, desires, beliefs.
The result will be much more liberal than marriage contracts of today. This will open the door for polygamy and gay marriage (which to me is desirable for society, but I know Catholic church won't like it)

[stevil]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1353608237' post='2514820']
I know you don't want there to be any government at all
[/quote]
That's incorrect, I am not an advocate of anarchy. There are laws that are essential for a peaceful society, e.g. laws against most forms of murder, theft, physical assaults etc. All though I don't want to be oppressed, I also don't want to be harmed.

[Aloysius]

stevil,

well, ultimately what I am for is for us carving out a real recognition of real marriage in society; other forms of sexual relationships that we deem to be sinful (that go on anyway with or without state recognition, of course), how they carve out their place in society is relatively irrelevant to me, except that I do not want those things to be on an equal setting with what is true marriage, and I want people to have the right to voluntarily choose to contract marriage in terms of the same type of legal perpetuity that it used to hold. if some loon also puts up a contract for a 2 year marriage as a renewable contract as the joke so often goes, well that person is a loon who would easily qualify for an annulment in the Church as the Church would certainly not recognize any proper intention but such an agreement (as a contract agreeing to be a single unit for a couple years in terms of finances, medical situations, housing, etc), if some folks make up some sorts of gay or polygamous contracts, well I do not think those things should be promoted and I think the only part of those things that should be recognized would be the basics: you should be able to make a contract that establishes your next of kin and/or who has rights to your medical records and maybe even creating a type of unit for tax purposes, the point is that the state should not promote or reward those types of sexual behaviors, but loose contract recognitions, so long as covenant marriage contracts were also recognized (and by their very nature as indissoluble, quite distinguished from other contracts), it makes sense to allow people to enter into them as contracts, from a civil perspective. it promotes indissoluble true marriages, which is the big thing that the Church wants to see done by the state: the promotion of the common good, allowing for those particular provisions (the perpetuity of the contract would be peculiar as most contracts are dissoluble in some way) is what promotes marriage as a union until death set apart from all other types of contracts.

next to such a covenant marriage contract, any other contracts that might be contracted by deviant sexualities might as well be little mini corporations devoted to themselves, they're basically just incorporating themselves. a gay couple forms a partnership in a company whose goal is basically the same as the goal of long term roommates, who could also establish a contract if they so wished. if we want to preserve and promote traditional marriage and ensure that it is distinguished in civil society against other deviant relationships, establishing covenant marriage contract law is a good way to do so (and opposing gay marriage or gay civil unions is likely the losing way to do so, no matter how noble a losing battle that I support it may be). I can't imagine they'd be pounding at the doors to demand to be allowed into the "not allowed to divorce" club that covenant marriage recognition would represent.

Era Might, I do welcome your input but I just don't know how to proceed with it without getting too far off topic. I hope you see I value your perspective here and it is interesting, but just like with many other understandings that basically question everything, all they do is devolve into a discussion of the basis of questioning everything rather than discussing the topic. I think debating this issue under certain premises and definitions of terms is important, but it's always valuable to question those terms a bit, but going too far and all we'll end up with is deconstruction of historical continuity in social institutions that have changed over time and while that's an interesting topic in and of itself it doesn't really speak to the heart of the proposal I'm bringing up.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1353615244' post='2514853']Era Might, I do welcome your input but I just don't know how to proceed with it without getting too far off topic. I hope you see I value your perspective here and it is interesting, but just like with many other understandings that basically question everything, all they do is devolve into a discussion of the basis of questioning everything rather than discussing the topic. I think debating this issue under certain premises and definitions of terms is important, but it's always valuable to question those terms a bit, but going too far and all we'll end up with is deconstruction of historical continuity in social institutions that have changed over time and while that's an interesting topic in and of itself it doesn't really speak to the heart of the proposal I'm bringing up.
[/quote]
I wasn't trying to deconstruct everything...just the opposite, my point is that marriage is just one aspect of the entire society that actually exists. I understand what you are saying about wanting to advance the vision of churchmen today (as expressed in the catechism, etc.) but one problem I have with most Christian proposals for society is not that they are too idealistic, but that they are usually just the society's terms dressed up in clothes like "traditional marriage" and "pro life." These proposals are usually pragmatic rather than prophetic, prudent rather than radical.

I find the entire Christian premise on marriage today wrong. Churchmen today want to create a "civilization of love." Okay, it sounds nice, but is that what Christianity is about, and is such pious talk based in worldly reality? We don't have to dissect this in this thread, I only bring it up rhetorically. I wasn't trying to deconstruct everything, simply trying to say that your proposal is rearranging chairs on the Titanic. To me, St. John the Baptist in the desert and Dorothy Day on the bread line says more to me about Christianity than bishops hyperventilating about "saving traditional marriage." I'm less inclined to save civilization and more inclined toward finding ways around it.

And I will add, finally, that I don't think you personally fall into the trap of retreading conventional talking points in Christian disguise. I think you appreciate radicals like Dorothy Day as much as I do.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Era Might

[stevil]

I have no problems with redefining current marriage law. I think it is faulty at the moment as it is bigoted against gay people and it is over prescriptive with regards to polygamy and incest.

I think there must remain some essentials which cannot be overruled by an individually agreed contract. E.g. I think there will be much conflict in my society if some Sharia based groups decide to marry girls under ten years of age. There is the potential for people to sell their daughters off or to coerce them into marriage. But otherwise, I do like the idea of individuals being able to negotiate and agree on the terms of their marriage.

With regards to some Christian groups wanting their own marriage to appear superior to secular marriage (which ought to include divorce, gay marriage, polygamy etc) then I certainly don’t have a problem with these Christian groups developing a qualifier. E.g. A Catholic certified marriage, of course to certify a marriage the Catholic church will want to add additional conditions.

With regards to government enforcing contracts, the issue religious groups may find is that interpretation of contracts will be defined by common law as conditions are challenged in court. This legally binding definition will likely fall out of alignment of the intent of the religious organisations whom presumably drafted the contracts. Thus the religious organisations will no longer support the arrangement. If they are not getting what they want, they will then be opposed to the extra liberties that secular marriage has gained, so from a desire to control perspective they have taken a step backwards.