Marriage, the Church, and the State

After further hashing-out some thoughts trapped in my head following a post at Vox Popoli, the subsequent fast-and-furious commentary by the Dread Ilk, and a related story regarding the ongoing failure of marriage in the United Kingdom at Elusive Wapiti (with additional examination at Code-Monkey Ramblings), I stumbled into an insightful op-ed piece at the New York Times, of all places, that had a surprisingly libertarian bent to it. (Broken clocks, nes pa?)

In particular, the op-ed confirms a previously-held opinion of mine: marriage determines the pecking-order of "rights" in the eyes of the State, and if one (or two, or many) want a reservation at the teat of the taxpayer, then one must adhere to the State's prevailing opinion of marriage. And so, fundamentally, marriage becomes a vehicle for convenience and comfortable living in this post-modern dystopia, and thus a mechanism for control.

What brought my attention to the op-ed, however, was a salient point revealed in ensuing discussion regarding the fuster-cluck of modern marriage: the Church refuses to stand up for the rights of its male congregation in the arena of family-law. I'm not suggesting the establishment of an organization of Legal Templars (however interesting the idea sounds), but the movement to reclaim marriage as the sole jurisdiction of the Church must be made in order to strengthen itself at the expense of the State, which has steadily usurped power to dictate restrictions according to its own satisfaction and aims. This alone should underline the danger in attempting to follow in the footsteps of the Social Gospelers in their attempts to unravel our civil-liberties, but if we have learned anything in our history, it is that we constantly demonstrate an ability to promptly forget (or determinedly ignore) our mistakes.

Incidentally, this is the primary reason I've not been to a brick-and-mortar church in years: my last visit to a "Christian" service with my then-girlfriend was so inclusive in scope that it was outright apostasy, and in hindsight, I should have ended the relationship then and there (she was employed by the clergy). Fortunately, it ended for other reasons some time later, and I thank the Almighty that it did.

To believe is one thing, and to not believe is another, but don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining when it comes to my responsibility to enslave myself to the State via a secularly-focused wife under the color of Scripture, because I won't have it.