Of course they do, and why shouldn't they? That's what the democratic majority wanted, so that's what they should have, right?rEvolutionist wrote:A lot of our laws have underpinnings in religious bollocks. Look at abortion and euthanasia.
For many centuries religious orders WERE the source of law, civil and theological. I'd argue that religion itself evolved in human culture as a method of proto-government. Clearly the Catholic church was the source of almost all law during the Dark Ages when "secular" civil authority didn't really exist as a widespread form of social control.
If one does not believe in deity, it becomes even more obvious that religion's purpose and place in society is exactly as "government" of a body of people because if one examines pretty much every single religious code one see's the efforts of the religious leaders to use reference to and threat of deistic actions as a way to control social behavior.
WTF do you think the Ten Commandments are about? WTF do you think Jewish dietary laws are about? They aren't about religion nearly as much as they are about social control, which is the prime purpose of government.
Without religion we would still be knocking each other over the head with tree branches whenever we like. Even the most primitive forms of religion we have discovered show strong elements of social control mechanisms, right down to the neolithic tribal shaman "interpreting" the will of the great Cave Bear.
Government and religion have historically been deeply intertwined, and it wasn't until the 1700's, with the American and French Revolutions, that the notion of secular government not beholden to or under the control of religious authorities even entered human social consciousness.
And because marriage long pre-dates even the earliest of secular governments, and is clearly part of the religious rituals of societies going back beyond the limits of recorded history, it's fundamentally a religious practice and ought to be treated as such by secular authorities.
What I don't understand is JimC's vehement objection to this notion. One would think that an Atheist would be fully in favor of getting the state out of the religion business and keeping it firmly in the secular civil-law sphere.
Illuminate us, Jim, why are you so adamantly determined to deny that "marriage" is a fundamentally religious concept?
