Letter to the Editor: Your Arguments Not Likely to Help Overturn Obergefell

In Response to Red States Pay Lip Service To Christianity, But Won’t TouchSame-Sex Marriage

I just read your article "Red States Pay Lip Service To Christianity, But Won't Touch Same-Sex Marriage".

I am against same-sex marriage inasmuch as marriage -- and every secular government-provided benefit that over the years has been added to it -- is for the protection of dependent wives and children.

But the arguments you are using are not likely to help overturn Obergefell.

First, the First Amendment, held via the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to the states, states that the government shall make "no law respecting an establishment of religion".

Legislatures may be allowed to proclaim that "Christ is King" if they want to but the moment that rationale is used as the basis for a law that affects non-Christians, that law will be overturned. Even at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, not everyone in the new U.S. was a believer (e.g. Haym Salomon, the Jew who funded the War for Independence.)

Second, marriage in the United States is purely secular.

The registration of a declaration of marriage is filed with the state via an affidavit that the state requires be witnesses/notarized by certain designated officials. These vary from state-to-state (judges, notaries
public, ship captains, etc.) and, for the purpose of facilitating religious ceremonies, also include religious leaders (pastors, priests, rabbis, etc.)

From the government standpoint the marriage declaration that is filed is for the purpose of identifying "where the families are" for purposes of (originally) inheritance, and later other state-bestowed benefits (joint tax filing, pension entitlement, e.g.)

(This unfortunately has become confused in the past three-four decades in family law, in which the rights and responsibilities of legal paternity do not always adhere to the husband of a woman who gives birth, but have been expanded into a biological tracing, even in the absence of a marriage.)

A couple can have a religious-only marriage by not filing "the license" (which documents status as sui juris and not already married) and not be legally married.

A couple can get themselves legally married by filing the license and declaratory affidavit without a religious ceremony.

The two things, the two concepts, are unconnected.

We are not a theocracy. If you want to prevail, I am here to help, but you cannot use Christianity as the rationale. You need to understand the STATE purposes for recognizing who are legally married, and imposing various state benefits and responsibilities on legal family members, and argue from those.

Elizabeth J. Kates, Esq.

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Response

Hey, Liz:

Thanks for the thoughtful letter.

You are missing the larger point: it's the hypocrisy.

These legislators care so much about God, and they are not afraid to declare "Christ is King."

But they don't have the courage to restore natural marriage?

It shows that all the talk about Christian faith is just that: talk.

Furthermore, as a member of MassResistance, we stress natural law, natural right, public health, and public order in our efforts to undo Obergefell and restore marriage as a natural bond between one man and one woman.

Thanks for writing.

Visit our website www.massresistance.org for more information.

Sincerely,

Arthur Christopher Schaper