Separation of Church and State

Today I want to take some time to talk about the separation of Church and State in terms of the federal government and why we have it. I bring this up because of the issue of same-sex marriages, perhaps one of the biggest social debates of our time. I recognize that everyone has their own opinion on the subject and their own reason for opposing or supporting it, but I believe that there are some important points that both parties have been overlooking during this drawn-out battle.

In school we are taught the story of the pilgrims and how they left England to escape religious persecution. We know these people to be puritans or protestants. Of course, its far more complicated than all of that. The point is that these people left their homeland because they were being persecuted and wanted freedom from that persecution. It wasn't just the state persecuting them, either. It was the Church. When Martin Luther nailed his ninety-nine theses to the door of the Church, there was a split. The people who moved away from the traditional church became known as Protestants, because they protested against the wrongs of the Church (not to be confused with the Puritans, a slightly more extreme religious sect that was more like a cult).

So, the Protestants found a way to compromise with their governments. They would go somewhere else and settle. They founded the Colonies on the eastern shores of what is now the United States under the principle of religious freedom. And by freedom I mean freedom to practice the different versions of Christianity. Other religious groups - such as the Quakers - were highly frowned upon.

So, what does all of this have to do with separation of Church and State, you wonder. Well, in England and other European countries at the time the Church was closely linked to and heavily influenced the government. The mixture of the Church with the government was what allowed the two to have considerably more power than either ought to have had. The government was able to punish people for religious malpractice (or what they decided religious malpractice was) and the Church was able to persecute people with the government's backing.

When the Colonies were founded, this was an important issue that they considered. Once they were independent of England and began to set up a government of their own it was something that they thought important enough to put on paper. This we have separation of Church and State.

This is important to keep in mind when we discuss the issue of same-sex marriage. One of the leading arguments is religiously based. People argue that the Bible says that same-sex relationships are wrong and sinful. That's fine. Maybe they're right and it is a sin. But it doesn't matter if they are wrong or right. What matters is that same-sex marriage is a political issue, not a religious one. Just because a same-sex couple gets married doesn't mean that the church has to recognize it as "right" or "ok". It just means that the state is recognizing a legal union between two consenting human beings. You can be married without the church. All it takes is a judge and some signatures and a witness.

My point is that Church and State are to be separate. When they are mixed bad things happen and people abuse power. Look at the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, or the selling of "tickets" to have sins forgiven (a clever guise for making money, yes, but wrong).

It is against the law to prohibit something based on religious grounds. And for those people who think that it's wrong or unnatural...well, I'm fairly certain we do a lot of things that are considered wrong or unnatural, but over the years they have become acceptable part of society anyways. And that opinion doesn't have any legal standing, anyways. It's not like allowing same-sex marriages means that you have to marry someone who's the same sex as you. I say keep your values to yourself and don't force them onto other people.

I realize that people can look at this and assume that I am saying all of this because I identify as bisexual. While that doesn't certainly weigh in on my opinion, I want to make it clear that I think each person should be allowed to live by their own morals and values without other people trying to force their opinions and values onto them. By denying people the right to marry whoever they want that is exactly what is going on. If same-sex marriage is allowed, what do heterosexual couples lose? They can still have heterosexual relationships and marriages. Nothing will change for them. The other option - the one that currently holds in many states - is denying someone the right to choose. And, being Christian myself (though I'm loathe to put a label to my spirituality these says, with as many times as I have been targeted by a Christian institution), I'm fairly confident in saying that God gave everyone the right to choose. We have free will to make the right or wrong decisions. Who are we to deny each other that free will if it isn't hurting people?