All the same arguments apply against letting the state define marriage. If the church is not to have the privilege of defining it, why should 'democracy'. If the church were in a majority, would that justify the church defining it? According to the author's argument it would. And that's how we have come to the current definition.

The commonest misunderstanding about marriage, which the author shares, is that marriage is something that the government does to the parties. This is incorrect. In fact neither the church nor the state ever claimed that marriage is constituted by an act of the church or the state. The position of both church and state is that marriage is constituted by the act of the parties in taking each other to be husband and wife. Registration by church or state merely recognises the existence of a marriage already contracted between the parties.

The common law of marriage developed in the Norman period when the justices went on circuit throughout England. Marriage customs were diverse because England at that time was a patchwork of different ethnicities: Celts, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, etc. The justices distilled out of this diversity the common characteristics that they (being Christians) would recognise for the purposes of the central government (most of which had to do with inheritance of real estate). That is the origin of our inherited law that marriage is a union of "one man and one woman".

It doesn't just discriminate against gays. It discriminates even moreso against multiple marriage. The irony of it is that the state recognises, and indeed subsidises serial polygamy, while simultaneous polygamy is a criminal offence. Thus the position of polygamists is even worse than that of gays.

The argument that the state should permit gay marriage and continue to criminalise polygamous marriage has all the same defects as the current orthodoxy against gay marriage.

People's private sexual and familial relationships are none of the government's business. Governmental regulation of consensual sexual relationships should be abolished.

Jardine,
A good response to another rant against the Christians. But the last sentence is incorrect: the government does not regulate consensual sexual relationships. Neither is there regulation of same sex female couples using a sperm donor to produce children. The problem, I think, that the state has with same sex marriage is that it falls outside of the definition of marriage that has reproduction at its centre. According to this definition sexual activity between same sex couples is not really sex because sex, by definition, is to do with reproduction. That is not to say that love between same sex couples is not binding and good.

I worry about how easy it is to take the worst examples of church polity and behaviour and then draw the worst conclusions. We can use that exercise to blacken the name of any social entity. When it is applied to the church it simply becomes hysterical and insulting. It is interesting that it is not applied to democracy or science. Church bashing seems to be the fashion of the day.

Peter Sellick

Thanks Sells; but the government does regulate consensual sexual relationships. For example if a couple have sex, and then as often happens, they decide they want to have sex again, and so on, eventually they get to a point where the government arbitrarily imposes marriage-like obligations affecting property, spouse maintenance, and so on.

The law against bigamy is another example of government regulation of consensual sexual relationships.

Another example is for so-called social security: the government inquires into the applicant's sexual relationships, and may for its own purposes constitute a marriage relationship even where the parties do not.

So on one hand government undermines de jure marriage by substituting its own terms for any terms of the parties (e.g. until 'irretrievable breakdown' for 'til death us do part'). On the other it creates de jure marriages for couples who have not volulntarily undertaken one.

(They have thus created the situation where we now have de jure marriage, de jure de facto marriage, and de facto de facto marriage!)

"The problem, I think, that the state has with same sex marriage is that it falls outside of the definition of marriage that has reproduction at its centre. According to this definition sexual activity between same sex couples is not really sex because sex, by definition, is to do with reproduction."

That describes the problem that the church, rather than the government, has with same sex marriage.

I would like to see sexual relationships deregulated. That way Christians could undertake marriages as they want, and exclude recognition of those they don't. Gays could do likewise. And everyone else could do likewise.

The sticking point is the desire of people to use government:
a) to manipulate everyone else into providing a recognition of a particular kind of sexual partnership that they know everyone else doesn't want to recognise, and
b) to pay benefits to people on the basis of favoured kinds of sexual relationships.

Thus the problem is not the definition of marriage itself. The problem is the desire to misuse government to blackguard everyone else into compliance with one's moral beliefs.

""The problem, I think, that the state has with same sex marriage is that it falls outside of the definition of marriage that has reproduction at its centre. According to this definition sexual activity between same sex couples is not really sex because sex, by definition, is to do with reproduction."" Sells (Friday, 10 September 2010 10:58:50 AM)

How many define marriage as having "reproduction at its centre"? Sure, it is an aim of a lot of marriages, especially heterosexual ones, but to position it as "the centre"?

Does the state really define sex and sexual activity that narrowly, or is that a slant you want to emphasise?

As you say, Sells, "the government does not regulate consensual sexual relationships".

Sells, "Church bashing seems to be the fashion of the day" and so it should be in this the 21st century, whilst the church attempts to impose medieval dogma on society.
Your belief that marriage is only for reproduction, shows contempt for those who are unable to have children, and to the love they have for each other.
"God is Love" you may chant, but he or she must be conerned, at those who presume to speak in their name.

Sells, "the definition of marriage that has reproduction at its centre."? Who's definition is that?

Certainly not my definition. Certainly not the definition of elderly couples getting married. (Should that be banned?) Certainly not the definition adopted by those couples who have no interest in having children at all. And certainly not the definition of most people, I would think, who actually put "love" at the centre of marriage.

To be honest, I don't think "reproduction" is even what JESUS would have put at the centre of his definition of marriage. After all, Jesus pretty much put "love" at the centre of everything, didn't he?

You see, centring marriage around reproduction pretty much means your marriage should probably be made null and void once you've finished raising your kids. The whole thing becomes worthless after that, don't you think?

Your definition of marriage is the definition owned only by those people who are attempting to enforce their view on the world on others (usually using their religious belief as their evidence). It is a feeble attempt to own morality in society. And, like the author suggests, Christians need to critically assess and deal with the behaviour of their own flock before they start trying to shepherd the rest of society.