Marriage

[mamadeb]

Marriage in the USA is a civil matter, not a religious one. For reasons of tradition, we empower religious officicants to enact marriages, but those marriages do not exist legally unless a marriage license is also issued. (Any one with multiple spouses knows this. For that matter, I know of Orthodox Jewish couples who chose not to have marriage licences. They are married halachically, but the state doesn't recognize it.) We also empower secular officials (judges, justices, county clerks) to do the same. There is no set ceremony (the Jewish ceremony does not resemble any Christian ceremony, for example - no vows are made, no kisses are exchanged.)

Because of this, and because no state can possibly require a religion to perform a marriage against its own tenets, I really don't see how any church or set of beliefs should have any bearing on who should or should not get married other than under their own auspices. I've said this before - Judaism, for example, forbids a marriage between a man and his ex-wife's sister (or his wife's sister, for that matter) in his ex-wife's lifetime. (Jacob married his wives before the Torah was given.) No Orthodox rabbi would perform this marriage. However, such a couple is and should be perfectly permitted to marry civilly. No synagogue has lost any tax-exempt status or been fined because of this.

If LDS or Orthodox Judaism or Catholicism or whoever do not want to perform gay marriages, this is their right and their privilege, and it would be wrong to require them to do so. But that has nothing to do with equality before the law. The right and penalities of marriage should be available to all consenting parties - anything else denies the equality of all adult Americans.

Comments

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I would, in fact, be terribly unhappy if an Orthodox rabbi performed a same-sex marriage.

I just don't believe we can mandate Torah observance. That being the case, we need to do the greatest good for the greatest number - and we also need to curb the rightward drift of this nation (I hope that, in fact, has happened.)

And I also do believe that homosexuality is not a choice. (And that only one sex act is actually forbidden.)

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

The fact that it is not a choice to my mind weakens the case for permitting it. If it was a choice, then perhaps conditions have changed since Matan Torah and it now makes sense to permit it. But if it isn't a choice and human nature hasn't changed then I don't see on what grounds we can alter the law.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

If only one sex act is actually forbidden why should marriage be forbidden? That's not all they do or can do.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

As far as male-male sexuality goes, the majority of people do the forbidden act, although a very significant minority don't. This provides some interesting halachic opportunites, but in the secular sphere you can't push for allowing gay marriage while forbidding the prohibitted act.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Given that there are things men and women can do that they're not supposed to do, and yet we still let them get married, this seems to be rather spurious logic.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

I'm becoming somewhat more convinced that I can support same sex marriage, which was one of the points of this exercise.

Part of the problem I have is that both the C and O movements have adopted the secular approach of considering GLBT as one thing(*). In fact, based on the poskim G and T are much more forbidden than L and 1/2 of B. This is one litmus test I apply to see if people are approaching the issues from a halachic or emotional standpoint - if it is all one thing then I consider that emotions are influencing their pasaks.

Continuing the pragmatic approach, the whole world would think I was insane (not uncommon anyway) if I said "I favor lesbian marriage and oppose gay marriage." So that sort of thing is out.

To respond to your point above, the majority of gentiles who marry do not commit behaviors which violate the arayot. According to at least some statistics, the majority of males who marry other males do.


(*) Rabbi Dorf's C teshuva does draw some distinctions, and is heteronormative. I don't expect this to be applied in practice, and I expect it to be formally overturned within a decade.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm more bothered not by the indirect argument of "this will encourage more people to do 'needle in a reed'", but the more direct argument of "you shall not do like they did in Egypt", which Rambam defines, following the Sifri (or some other midrash) as "men would marry men, women would marry women."

So while I feel they should be legal, I don't know if I should sign petitions for it or not.