Consider this paradox: The government of Germany supports religion, but clergy there are not allowed to perform official weddings. Couples must be wed by state authorities. For a church ceremony, the couple takes an extra step, and they often do, even a year after their official marriage.
In the U.S., however, where church and state are officially separate, clergy are allowed to perform state-approved ceremonies.
The irony is apparent to Scott Bartchy, professor of Christian origins and the history of religion at UCLA, who taught in Germany during the 1970s.
“Early on (in the U.S) we empowered ministers and rabbis to marry people,” said Bartchy, who graduated from Milligan College (where I teach), earned advanced Harvard degrees, and once taught at Emmanuel School of Religion in Johnson City. “We hear it when they say, ‘by the authority vested in me by the state of Tennessee.’ What in the world is the ministry doing administering the laws of Tennessee?”
The complex relationship between marriage, the state and religion crashed the headlines again last week when the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry in that state.
The ruling was close, 4-3, and it may be overturned if voters decide in November to amend the state constitution to define marriage as only between a man and woman. (In 2000, Californians passed a proposition saying as much, with a 61 percent majority, but that does not carry constitutional weight.)
Except for California and Massachusetts, which approved same-sex marriage in 2003, American laws recognize marriage only between a man and a woman. Several states, including California, already have domestic partnership provisions, which give same-sex couples some legal rights but are not considered equal with marriage.
But more than legalities are involved. There are cultural and economic dimensions – and religious ones, of course. People get married in church buildings, synagogues and mosques for a reason.
Faith traditions teach theological ideas about the meaning of marriage and family. For Christians and Jews, Genesis 2 portrays the relationship between man and woman as a reflection of God’s own nature. Popular notions of romance – “when two egos enter a relationship to maximize their own benefits,” as Bartchy put it – doesn’t play a big role. The biblical ideal of being “of one flesh” means more than being in one bed.
There was a time when such ideas were generally accepted, and common religious teachings coincided with the state’s interest in maintaining stable households. Church and state found it easy to meet at the wedding altar.
That cooperation was part of another legacy – the tangled and often troubled relationships between governments and churches dating back at least to 313, when the Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and favored it with his patronage.
Before then, distinctions were clear between Christians and the society at large ad especially the government. Constantine’s edict made life easier for Christians, but it also smudged the borders between church, state and society.
The current disputes over marriage show just how long-lasting and messy that legacy has been. Here’s a question: If a minister believes – for theological reasons – that marriage is only between a man and a woman, but performs a wedding in Massachusetts or California, is he or she compromising a matter of faith by sanctifying that state’s broader definition of marriage? Or anywhere – what if a minister who believes Jesus’ words about divorce (Matthew 19:3-9) performs a marriage between two legally divorced people?
The state is interested in stability, but not necessarily in how or why people live together, other than a vague notion of “an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children,” as California Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote in last week’s majority opinion.
It may be time for church and state to separate at the altar, according to Bartchy.
“I think we would clean up our act a whole lot if the state alone issued marriage licenses,” he said. “Whatever form the majority thinks that should take ought to be case, since this is a democracy. Then whatever Christian or other religious groups do, that’s for them to decide.”
First published in the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press, 24 May 2008.
