“I do not understand how we have come to the unholy union of church and state that we call marriage today.”
–The Rev. Rick Mixon
In all the emotional public debate over same-sex marriage, the overarching issue of church-state separation often gets lost. I’m glad to see that situation beginning to change.
Last week, Mike Swift of the San Jose Mercury News called to talk to about Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment that takes away gay couples’ right to get married in the Golden State.
I told Swift that federal tax law forbids religious groups (and other tax-exempt entities) to endorse candidates but it generally doesn’t forbid them to speak out on referenda. I added, however, that it’s still deeply troubling to see three extraordinarily powerful faith traditions – the Religious Right, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) and the Roman Catholic hierarchy — throwing their weight around so blatantly on a sensitive civil rights and civil liberties issue.
“At its heart,” I told the newspaper, “the marriage issue is a church-state issue. In effect, you have several of the large faith groups trying to impose their viewpoint on marriage on the whole state. That’s really what’s going on with this referendum.”
For example, according to the Mercury News, a Yes on 8 campaign spokesman said Mormon donors make up “30 to 40 percent” of the $28 million raised this year to place the measure on the ballot. Since Oct. 1, the newspaper said, the committee has received nearly as much out-of-state money from predominantly Mormon Utah as from the other 48 states combined.
Meanwhile, the Catholic bishops are working assiduously for Proposition 8, while the Knights of Columbus has kicked in $1.2 million to help out.
Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and other Religious Right leaders have launched a major crusade on behalf of the initiative as part of their bid to see that all laws and government policies reflect their fundamentalist Christian view of marriage.
Larry Pegram, president of the Values Advocacy Council, sort of summed it all up when he told the Mercury News, “There is a myth called the separation of church and state. What the First Amendment says is government can’t create a state church. The First Amendment was written to protect churches. It wasn’t to keep churches out of the public arena.”
That viewpoint is thoroughly garbled, of course. The First Amendment does, indeed, protect the rights of churches to teach their doctrines, and they’re free to speak out in the public arena. But it doesn’t mean churches should try to impose their doctrines on non-members through government action. The Constitution provides for a separation of religion and government so that other people can follow their own faiths (or follow no spiritual path at all).
Evangelical, Mormon and Catholic churches are free to restrict the marriages they perform to man-woman couples. But Unitarian, United Church of Christ and Reform Jewish congregations take a different view and extend their blessings to same-sex couples as well. What about their religious freedom?
The California Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples have a civil right to equal treatment when it comes to marriage. Now three powerful religious traditions want to take that right away and substitute their own doctrinal teachings as state policy.
I’m glad to see that some clergy are realizing how wrong this is.
The Rev. Rick Mixon, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Palo Alto, told the Mercury News that he is baffled that his fellow evangelicals have “come down on the wrong side of this issue.” He argues for a clean line of distinction between church actions and state marriage laws.
“I do not understand how we have come to the unholy union of church and state that we call marriage today,” he said. “Clergy, especially Baptist clergy, have no business acting as agents of the state, whether in making wedding proclamations on the state’s behalf or in signing wedding licenses.”
Other evangelicals are reaching the same conclusion.
The Rev. Alger Keough, executive pastor of Azure Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church in Grand Terrace, told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that he would never marry a same-sex couple because he believes the Bible permits marriage only between a man and woman.
But the newspaper said Keough is one of dozens of Adventists in the Inland area who have signed a petition opposing Proposition 8. (The petition drive began after an Adventist church-state council endorsed the initiative.)
Keough told the newspaper that the ballot measure violates the separation of church and state, which Adventists — who have sometimes faced discrimination because their Sabbath is on Saturday — have long promoted. He said even though he believes same-sex marriage is wrong, he shouldn’t be able to impose his beliefs on others.
What a concept! Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and many of America’s other founders would give Pastor Keough a rousing amen.
Here’s the bottom line: When it comes to religion and government, let no church group join together, what the Constitution hath put asunder.
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