Michigan Bill Would Require Relgious Sanction of Marriage

[roddma]

I think religious conservatives fail to realize marriage was never a religious based institution. I agree with Calcagno is a blatant violation of the Constitution.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2015/06/18/ ... -religion/

[mirele]

This is flatly unconstitutional. It's disgusting to see legislators flip the bird to the First Amendment.

[Cactus]

Oh FFS. :x The stupid, it burns.

[doggie]

butt butt We are persecuted and it is only to protect our deeply held Christian [tm][/tm] faith :pfft:

[salex]

Same strategy ok was going with. Did they miss the memo that there are clergy who are happy to marry gays?

Will their next step be to limit which clergy are real clergy?

[DGayle]

The bills protect public officials from being forced to perform same-sex marriages.

Don't want to be forced to perform same-sex ceremonies? Then use your freedom to not be a government officiant.

[ADoyle90815]

I guess they'll say that those churches that are willing to perform same sex marriages aren't "real" churches, so they shouldn't be allowed to do any weddings.

[ILoveJellybeans]

It wont work the way he thinks it will. Not all religions are the same.

Is he proposing that one specific branch of a religion have the right to make marriages official? But which one? How do they pick that? It cant be the one he wants, who is he to decide? The government cant just pick a religion for this, as that would be unconstitutional. Americans have the separation of church and state, and having one religion choosing whether everyone gets married would break that rule.

Choosing one branch of Christianity would piss most people off. Even the fundies, he is not one of them, therefore they wouldn't be allowed to marry and it would piss them off as much as the liberal Christians. Loads of people will not be able to get married, because most churches probably would not allow someone to get married there if they aren't even Christian and have no intention of going to that church before or after the wedding.

Allowing all branches of Christianity to marry people in their church would not work the way he hoped. Some churches are welcoming of gay people and would be happy to marry gay people. It wouldn't stop gay marriage.

I cant imagine it would be every religion, the kind of person who would want a rule like this means their religion, not other people's. Can you imagine them saying that it would be fine for any form of religious leader to marry someone, as long as they are part of a religion? That would mean everything...Christians, Muslims, Jews, Wiccans, Satanists, Scientologists, FLDS, UU, Pagan, some weirdo cult leader's home church, most of these words scare Republicans.

As with the above, there are so many different belief systems to work with that there would be no way to stop any form of marriage he would be against. There are plenty of churches who would fit in on the above list who would marry gay people, and plenty of options for atheists too. An atheist can be UU, and the Church of Satan is atheist too.

Also how do you define religion? Anyone can start a church. What about people who go online to fill out a form and officially be allowed to perform weddings. Apparently it is pretty easy to do that. If someone doesn't find an existing church that allows the wedding they want (which would be pretty hard), they can just start a new church saying that its allowed, claim religious reasons on why God is totally cool with their relationship style and marry whoever they like.

Fundies like to say that if the government allows gay marriage it will pave the way for people marrying horses. It wont, as the government still has laws preventing things like that for good reasons. But what if someone created the Holy Church of Horse Fucking and agrees to perform human/animal marriages.

If you take marriage away from the government and bring it back to purely religion-any religion, there would be more freedom for everyone to marry whoever they want. Even things the government does not allow. Want to make your polyamorous threesome a legal marriage? Why not, theres bound to be a religion who will allow more than two people to marry. What about if you want to marry your brother? Surely there is a church somewhere that will look the other way and just allow it. Will fundamentalists and cults be able to do arranged marriages of 14 year olds? Do you really want to marry your toaster? I don't think there is a religion that will allow that, but maybe you could create one.

I think all this is caused by them just not understanding marriage and religion. Churches will still be allowed to decide who they marry-some wont marry someone who was previously divorced, or wouldnt allow someone from a different religion to marry in their church. It wont force every church to marry gay couples, it will just give the ones who want to an option.

[Toothfairy]

Well technically traditional christian marriage includes one man and 400 woman. Why can't people just mind their own business and focus on things that matter. Gay marriage will become legal rather you like it or not. It's a human right. Let's focus on health care or the broken foster care system.

[crazyforkate]

Even if this did pass, wouldn't it be struck down so fast the ink wouldn't have time to dry? Are they trying to force some kind of higher court battle? Because I can't see that going anywhere, either.

[16strong]

If this is passed, I predict a boom in attendance at the CoFS. :fsm:

I also predict a lot of lawsuits, and yet more taxpayer money wasted.

[roddma]

Maybe a little OT but Here's a brief history of marriage. i especially like the last part. Marriage is great and wonderful, but singles are singled out in this debate. There's still a huge stigma against singles.

Feminist groups fought to ease pressure on women to find a man and settle down, helping to cement the idea of marriage as a partnership between equals. Marital rape was outlawed

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/2 ... 89763.html

Here's a bit from an Amazon review on "Singlism:What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It":

Basically, people who are unmarried are punished, because the government prefers marriage over non-marriage. I utterly reject the idea of marriage because I am an atheist and a realist. I want the right to be unmarried and most marriages end in divorce, even with the best of intentions.