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Sunday, November 16, 2008

Gay Marriage and the Establishment of Religion



Ignore Aston Kuther at the end. Yeah, he's pretty.

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham was on Bill Maher last night and gave one of the best arguments that I've heard against Prop 8. The idea is that marriage is a religious sacrament and the people have voted on who can give that sacrament and to whom.

That looks an awful lot like the legislative establishment of religion.

Thanks, Brendan, for the link to the video.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The argument fails, though, because there is a difference between the religious sacrament of marriage and the State-licensed institution of marriage.

Anyone can still administer the sacrament of marriage (if that's what they want to call it) to any group of people. They just can't require the State to recognize those marriages as State-licensed ones.

If marriage were a purely religious institution, then the argument would be stronger. Although, in that case, the constitutional solution would be to have the State withdraw from the regulation of marriage altogether.

However, marriage does have a strongly secular aspect.

bjkeefe said...

I think this is the clip you're looking for. (Pay no attention to the title, although AK does speak at the end.)

I saw it on Balloon Juice, if you're wondering.

xopher.tm said...

What I've been saying for years: Marriage is either a religious institution, in which case all marriages must either be recognized or ignored altogether by the govt. (works out to be the same thing), or it is a legal institution, which can be entered into by any consenting adult. Either way there is no basis for legislating the banning of gay marriages.

bjkeefe said...

You're welcome. Glad to be able to help.