The Church And Civil Marriage

[prose]

If the government were to enact a law insisting that all agencies must marry whoever asks regardless of same sex or whatever, would the Church ba able to step out of the civil/legal side of marriage all together?

I mean, right now, couples can go get married by a JP and then come to the Church to have their marriage made sacramental. So this would just apply to all marriages?

Is it important to include state laws in the sacramental ceremony?

(Maybe this should be on the debate table?)

[princessgianna]

[quote name='prose' post='1631720' date='Aug 19 2008, 02:04 PM']If the government were to enact a law insisting that all agencies must marry whoever asks regardless of same sex or whatever, would the Church ba able to step out of the civil/legal side of marriage all together?

I mean, right now, couples can go get married by a JP and then come to the Church to have their marriage made sacramental. So this would just apply to all marriages?

Is it important to include state laws in the sacramental ceremony?

(Maybe this should be on the debate table?)[/quote]
yea i don't have a lot of time to say what i want to say
so i ll reply later! I find this question interesting

Pax~!

[CatherineM]

I guess it would kind of look like the way our marriage was. We got married civilly first, and then had the blessing later at the church. If they want to force the church to ceremonies for gay couples in Canada, that will be the way it will have to work. The marriage commissioner could do the paperwork in the vestibule, and then the couple could go in the church for the real ceremony.

[havok579257]

I look at it like this, if they want to do something like this, then who cares if we are legally married as long as we are blessed/married in God's eyes.

[prose]

Well, I would still get legally married....

[kenrockthefirst]

The state, i.e. civil government, is going to do what it's going to do. Marriage from the civil perspective is a legal contract that entails a number of responsibilities and rights, e.g. medical decisions, inheritance. Marriage as a sacrament and mystery representing the union between Christ and His Church is neither here nor there from the civil perspective. So when the time comes, as seems likely, that gay "marriage" becomes the law of the land in the US, we'll have to call sacramental marriage just that, "sacramental marriage" or "church marriage" or something similar to differentiate between a civilly recognized legal contract and the sacrament.

[VeniteAdoremus]

We already have this system - you can only get married in Church after a civil marriage.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='VeniteAdoremus' post='1631939' date='Aug 19 2008, 05:17 PM']We already have this system - you can only get married in Church after a civil marriage.[/quote]
So, what happens if you get only a Church marriage? I mean, obviously, the gov't wouldn't recognize it with any benefits or whatnot, but could you get arrested?

[VeniteAdoremus]

[quote name='MissScripture' post='1631951' date='Aug 20 2008, 12:28 AM']So, what happens if you get only a Church marriage? I mean, obviously, the gov't wouldn't recognize it with any benefits or whatnot, but could you get arrested?[/quote]

The Church wouldn't allow you to get married. The government doesn't care - it's freedom of religion

There are ways to emulate civil marriage without actually getting married, but with the same inheritance and medical rights, etc. The only difference is that children born within this relationship need the explicit "recognition" by their father (children born within a marriage are automatically recognised, even if the husband knows it's not his child... he'll have to change it later). But this arrangement isn't recognised by the Church, either.

I believe it has to do with the responsibility of checking whether the spouses are allowed to be married - the government is supposed to make sure neither of them isn't already married, they're both fit to act legally, and they're not family, etc.

A civil marriage takes about 12 minutes, by the way (you have to do the paperwork a year to a week in advance). I was having a cup of tea outside the Town Hall last week and before I was quite finished we'd had two marriages.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='VeniteAdoremus' post='1632015' date='Aug 19 2008, 07:10 PM']The Church wouldn't allow you to get married. The government doesn't care - it's freedom of religion

There are ways to emulate civil marriage without actually getting married, but with the same inheritance and medical rights, etc. The only difference is that children born within this relationship need the explicit "recognition" by their father (children born within a marriage are automatically recognised, even if the husband knows it's not his child... he'll have to change it later). But this arrangement isn't recognised by the Church, either.

I believe it has to do with the responsibility of checking whether the spouses are allowed to be married - the government is supposed to make sure neither of them isn't already married, they're both fit to act legally, and they're not family, etc.

A civil marriage takes about 12 minutes, by the way (you have to do the paperwork a year to a week in advance). I was having a cup of tea outside the Town Hall last week and before I was quite finished we'd had two marriages.[/quote]
Okay. That's sort of how it is here, as far as the Church not allowing you to JUST get married in the Church and not legally, but the Church wedding fulfills the legal side, too. I asked the priest about that last summer, when my brother got married, because he said that my brother needed to make sure to bring the marriage license to the rehearsal or he wouldn't do the wedding.

[CatherineM]

Yeah our priest wanted our marriage certificate, but not our confirmation certificates which puzzled me.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1632058' date='Aug 19 2008, 08:02 PM']Yeah our priest wanted our marriage certificate, but not our confirmation certificates which puzzled me.[/quote]
Well, the priest insisted on the marriage license the night before, because there was a wedding he did where the groom FORGOT to get a license. He came to the rehearsal, told Father that he'd forgotten it at home, Father called him the next morning, to remind him, and he said, "Oh, yeah, I have the APPLICATION right here." They had to go to the Courthouse to get one before the 2:00 ceremony. Wedding was almost off.

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='VeniteAdoremus' post='1631939' date='Aug 19 2008, 05:17 PM']We already have this system - you can only get married in Church after a civil marriage.[/quote]
Right, but in most cases only for a man and a woman. Today, the concept of "marriage" evokes the image of a bride and groom. As that paradigm gets thrown under the bus and "marriage" become a legal contract between any two(?) people, we'll need to differentiate between civil and sacramental marriage.

[prose]

Frankly, I like the idea of separate civil and spiritual ceremonies.

[VeniteAdoremus]

[quote name='prose' post='1632666' date='Aug 20 2008, 07:21 PM']Frankly, I like the idea of separate civil and spiritual ceremonies.[/quote]

I've thought about that a lot before the problem became moot for me... and I think I prefer a combined ceremony. I've attended several civil and church marriages, and the civil marriages were always very awkward - the civil servant always held a speech, which was like a very, very week version of the homily... it was almost like the speech was there to make the civil servant happy. (S)he'd only had two conversations with the couple, too... not a year of marriage preparation.

All in all, awkward. But maybe I lack the imagination to think of a better ceremony.

How do you imagine the perfect set of separated ceremonies?