Gay Marriage Approved by New York Senate

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by agzg

I'm under the understanding that the current legal precedent is set by Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

It is, but Casey didn't change the basic legal analysis of Roe. While some aspects of Roe have been overturned, the basic idea of the right to choose as being protected by the Fourteenth Amendment has not been overturned and continues to underlie abortion/right to choose cases.

Originally Posted by BluPhire

Yes, but also in many states, the person does not have to be religious as well be it a justice of the peace, judge, ship captain (LOL) that's why I said it could be argued we are not so much in bed with religion as we think we are sometimes.

Every state provides for some non-religious officiant -- justice of the peace, magistrate, judge, etc. That's not the point.

The point is that every state authorizes clergy to act as agents of the state in officiating at weddings. In every state, provided certain other requirements are met (licenses and the like -- thanks, Kevin), a religious wedding will also create a legal marriage. In other words, participation in a religious ceremony results in a change in legal status. I can't think of any other instance where this happens in our legal system. The result is that we think of marriage in the civil sense and marriage in the religious sense as the same thing.

Because we do not draw a distinction between marriage as a religious institution/status and marriage as a legal institution/status, the lines get blurred in a discussion on something like same-sex marriage, and it can be difficult, like preciousjeni says, to distinguish between marriage as a religious status and marriage as a legal status. This problem doesn't exist where a clear line is drawn between civil and religious understandings of marriage.

Originally Posted by Kevin

Not necessarily. Consider homosexual marriage, polygamy, or marriages where no one bothers to get a license and there's no common law marriage provision in the state's law.

In many states, the only aspect that gives religious marriage the power to legally marry someone is that we authorize certain people to act for the state in obtaining, filling out and filing marriage licenses.

Very true, and thanks for the clarification.

And always the only thing that gives clergy the power to legally marry is that the state has authorized clergy to act for the state. But is there any state that doesn't do that? The result is that Americans generally see marriage in the legal sense and marriage in the religious sense as being the same thing.