|
|
Marriage Matters
Arthur E. Farnsley II
Several mainline Christian denominations are worried about gay
marriage. Should the church bless a union between adults of the same
gender? Can the church bless a union that the government does not
recognize?
President Bush is also worried about gay marriage. On Tuesday he
responded to the ongoing pairings of same-sex couples in San
Francisco and asked Congress for a constitutional amendment to ban
gay marriage. In doing so, he seeks to shore up and defend "the most
fundamental institution of civilization."
If "gay marriage" is the question, then "gay" must be the issue,
because "marriage" is collapsing in the U.S. no matter what the
President, the courts, or the mainline denominations think.
The numbers are stark. In the 1960 census, 78 percent of
US "households" were composed of married couples. As late as 1970,
70 percent were. In 2000, only 52 percent were. By 2010, we can
reasonably assume that unmarried households will have displaced
married ones as the domestic unit of choice.
In 2000, 11 million people told the census that they were living with
an "unmarried partner" -- as opposed to a roommate or some other co-
habitator. For the record, the total number of unmarried partners
rose 72 percent from 1990, and ten-fold from 1960, according to the
2000 census (as parsed by http://www.unmarried.org). About 11 percent of
those were living with a partner of the same sex.
The effect that the decline of two-parent homes has on children is
well known. According to http://www.childstats.gov, 68 percent of kids live
with two parents, so nearly one-third do not. Since 1980, the
percentage of births to unmarried women have almost doubled, from
around 18 percent to approximately 33 percent. For African-American
women, that figure is about 70 percent. Read that again: more than
two-thirds of African-American children are born to unmarried women.
This is hardly a simple matter of culture or lifestyle choices. Only
10 percent of all children with married parents live in poverty.
Half of children in female-householder homes do. Among African-
Americans, the corresponding figures prove the point: 13 percent of
kids living with married parents are impoverished, compared to 55
percent of children in female-householder homes.
If marriage is eroding and kids are suffering, why the fuss about gay
marriage? Because we insist on linking the moral and religious
foundations of the institution with the legal, contractual ones. And
sadly, too many people flail quixotically at the former because they
have failed miserably to promote or enforce the latter.
What if we envisioned marriage in two parts? First, as a civil union
and second, as a moral and religious union. Every couple (composed
of consenting adults) who wishes to be joined could form a
contractual bond in which both parties assume fixed legal commitment
to, and responsibility for, the other. The state would recognize and
enforce this legal contract as "marriage", though we could always
find a different word for it if necessary. The state could also
enforce child support by both parents as a contractual obligation
that had nothing to do with whether the parents were "in love" or
thought of themselves as married.
The moral and religious component of "marriage" would then be a
second piece, separate and non-compulsory, with each religious
tradition enforcing its own canons of eligibility. Whether people
were married in the eyes of God would have nothing to do with whether
they were contractually partnered for legal purposes. Some faith
traditions already insist on the de facto difference between legal
and religious marriage. There are ever more pastors who will not
perform a "church wedding" for strangers simply because the bride and
groom have a license. There is growing insistence that the faith
community share in, and take responsibility for, marriages that take
place within it.
The changes envisioned here would be neither complex nor
unprecedented. A few other countries and now the state of Vermont
allow civil marriage between any two adults while faith communities
still set their own guidelines. But most of America continues to
operate on bad faith, pretending that there is some underlying
national unanimity about marriage's moral or religious meaning,
refusing to acknowledge that any agreed-upon, enforceable linkage
between the legal contract and sacred obligations broke down long
ago.
President Bush says he believes that marriage is between a man and a
woman and he's asking Congress and the states to ensure that it stays
that way. How much better if he was focused on providing children
with stable homes and encouraging lifelong commitments between adults
who care for one another and share responsibility for their
progeny.
---------
Arthur E. Farnsley II researches and writes about religion and social
change. His latest book is Rising Expectations: Urban Congregations,
Welfare Reform, and Civic Life (IU Press, 2003).
"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
|
] 
A Place of Safety
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
I wonder how these stats compare with Europe, Australia, etc 
