Quote:
Originally Posted by Platapus
The Frau was telling me how they handle marriage in Germany, and I think their system would work well here in the US.
Everyone gets married in a non-religious civil ceremony before a government official. This establishes the legal state of marriage. Then, the couple can go to their church for the religious ceremony of marriage. This establishes the religious/spiritual state of marriage.
Churches are free to establish their own rules and exclude anyone they wish. Also, no one is forced to have a religious ceremony.
The problem we have in the US is that for too long there has been an intermixing the process of legal state of marriage and the religious/spiritual state of marriage.
Let's separate them. Hey separation of church and state. I like how that sounds. 
The government gets to make the rules concerning the legal state of marriage and the churches get to make the rules concerning the religious/spiritual state of marriage. A win-win situation.
If a church disagrees with the legal state of marriage, they don't have recognize it in their religious state of marriage. |
Dude, we have marriage licenses. Than you can pretty much do it however you want. I'm good with that.
...and do union licenses for gays and let them get hitched how they choose.