Yesterday, The Coalition for Marriage (C4M) put out this statement concerning marriage. In it, they argued in favour of civil marriages being made compulsory before any religious ceremony takes place.
I also was shown John Stevens, National Director for FIEC, had commented at length against their proposal. You can read John’s position below:
It is disappointing that the evident reasons for the C4M statement seems to be driven by fear of muslims and a specific desire to see sharia marriages effectively curtailed. On this, I think John Stevens was apt to comment, ‘It is easy to use fear of muslims, and problems in some elements of the muslim community, to propose restrictions that could have far-reaching consequences and restrict religious freedom for other communities, including Jews and Christians.’
The reason I am particularly sad about what is driving the C4M proposal is that – if we reject the reasoning – the proposal itself is really quite sound. Specifically, they propose:
- Make a civil marriage compulsory before or at any religious ceremony, with clear penalties for non-compliance, exactly as recommended by the Government’s sharia review.
- Stop legitimising private forums as ‘courts’ in official speech. There is no parity with the family courts in law or effect.
- Enforce the law to protect women and children: no unregistered ‘weddings’, no child ‘marriages’, and professional sanctions where state officials facilitate such events.
- Require NHS communications to be science-led and unambiguous on consanguinity risks, coupled with targeted genetic counselling and community outreach.
Whilst I have less concern about the use of the word ‘courts’ when it comes to sharia, not least as Christian denominations refer to their ‘church courts’ on the same basis (see here for more on this), I think all four proposals are essentially sound. However, I believe they are sound for entirely different reasons.
To that end, I thought I would repost this older piece I wrote a year ago, which also links to a couple of older posts than that (which I would also encourage you to read), that makes the same case that religious ceremonies should have no legal standing. Indeed, the community – typically represented by the state – ought to perform the legal marriage with any religious ceremony occurring after the fact, holding no legal standing whatsoever.
My reasons for this are severalfold. I think we have, because of the role of the Church of England in our history and culture, a very confused view of marriage. I think churches conducting marriages confuses matters of church and state and takes churches away from our God-given mission.
I am wary of privileging Christian marriages and making them normative as we currently do when, even on a strictly Christian view, marriage is a societal good for all and not a uniquely Christian sacrament or rite. If we want marriage to be viewed as a societal good, and we recognise the goodness of marriage in and of itself regardless of who specifically officiated matters, privileging Christian marriages in the church is detrimental to that aim.
I am similarly troubled when people suggest the church unilaterally recognise marriages against the view of the wider community (again, typically understood as state recognition in our context) as this seems to bake in a belief that the church may define marriage despite the bible not giving the church that right. This creates significant problems as we witness to a community about marriage and sexuality when, as the wider community judge it, no marriage has taken place. This puts us in the position of ‘recognising’ a marriage of our own volition, permitting and even encouraging those in it towards sexual intimacy, when no formal marriage has occurred and is one that nobody else acknowledges. The problems this creates for our witness and integrity on these matters are serious.
I would to read the article linked below for a more fulsome case. I would, if you have time, follow the links within it too. If the C4M statement was made without its disappointing anti-muslim overtones, I would be happy to commend it to you as four quite reasonable suggestions on marriage, which is something of a shame. But the substance of what they propose is credible and I, albeit for different reasons, share a different case for the same fundamental proposals below.