Separation of Church And State

I was listening to a radio talk show yesterday and overheard the hosts talking about this little incident (wherein Miss California, Carrie Prejean, bemoans the fact that she lost this contest because when asked about her position on gay marriage, she took a vocal position against gay marriage). The hosts of the show danced around the issue of whether or not this should have cost her the pageant and callers said it shouldn't because it's a beauty pageant (to which I thought: 'Hello? It's a -beauty- pageant and she's ugly on the inside! They don't ask those questions to see her mouth move, they want to know if she has a beautiful personality too and clearly she has a lot of bigotry going on in there, hence, not beautiful.)

Of course, all this really got me thinking (for the umpteenth time) of what sort of weirdness is it that someone would feel compelled to defend a position that it is wrong for two people to love one another. What on Earth these people could see bad about this issue when looked at logically? I mean yeah, it says some things against men being with men in the Bible, but of course, we have a separation of church and state here right? Wrong!

You see, "marriage" is the only place in our society where something your religious leader can do will have an effect on your civic life in a real, legally-binding, way. It's the only time, for example, that we, as a society, will tolerate the notion that someone from someone's -church- can legally influence how they pay taxes. Nothing else you can have a religious leader do can effect you or anyone else in any civil or legal sense with the exception of marriage.

I think this whole arrangement is absurd. We are not supposed to allow religion to influence our government in this way. I mean, I'm -certain- that it's because of this arrangement that some religious people don't like the idea of gay marriage. It damages the purity of their religious institutions because to them "marriage" is sacred and needs to be kept "pure" and in accordance with their religious teachings. The problem is that I don't need legal approval to be baptised as a Christian, or to be converted to Islam, why would I need it to partake in any other religious ceremony? Further, what right does religion have in influencing who I can make civil contracts with? The problem is that our laws on marriage are written such that "marriage" is defined as basically whatever religion says it is.

In light of this, I really think that maybe we should have two types of unions for everyone.

My theory is simple. Make "civil unions" the default standard for every couple and let "marriage" remain a religious service. This way if someone wanted to get a "civil union", they could. Surely no religious person would disagree with the notion of two people joining in a legally-binding agreement with each other (or that religion should even have any say at all in what legal arrangements I am able to make in my personal life). A civil, legal contract doesn't imply any approval by any supernatural deities any more than getting baptised is a legally-binding contract with a church or deity. I mean, imagine if sin was a criminal behavior, what kind of society would that be? (c.f. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.)

Under this arrangement, when ANY couple's rights were looked at to determine their eligibility to, say, see one another in a hospital, it wouldn't be a marriage certificate that would be consulted, it would be some one's "civil union contract". If someone wanted to formalize their union with a religious service that signified some sort of "heavenly approval", that would be something they would do entirely on their own.

So I say let's get rid of marriage altogether in this country. Make this a country of "civil unions" that have the same legal weight as the current definition of marriage and let's let religion have "marriage" back as their own religious ritual, completely separated from all legal influence.