Hi Niall: Yes, I see where you are coming from here, but I don't think that the churches (and devout members of those churches) would see it the same way. I can't really argue that case, because I am an atheist.
But your argument seems to me to go back hundreds of years in England, to the time of Henry VIII, and the battle between church and state which, in the eyes of some, has never really been settled. Your key sentence is ssurely: "Equally, society could refuse to allow churches to be used for the signing of the marriage register, and insist that a marriage is only legal if transacted at a registry office." But could society do this at the moment? I suspect that if the secular arm tried this on then the rumbling unresolved compromise of the past 500 years would once again rear its ugly head. I could imagine a country where the secular/church battle for authority really came to a head (say Mexico between the wars, or France in the late 19th century) trying this on, but the result would be hundreds of thousands of people being married in their own eyes, and in the eyes of the church, but not in the eyes of the state. I think you can see where that would lead. As such, I don't think that it is a viable option. I don't think people would "drift away and not bother". I think it would cause a grave constitutional crisis.
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Date: 2013-02-25 02:17 pm (UTC)But your argument seems to me to go back hundreds of years in England, to the time of Henry VIII, and the battle between church and state which, in the eyes of some, has never really been settled. Your key sentence is ssurely:
"Equally, society could refuse to allow churches to be used for the signing of the marriage register, and insist that a marriage is only legal if transacted at a registry office."
But could society do this at the moment? I suspect that if the secular arm tried this on then the rumbling unresolved compromise of the past 500 years would once again rear its ugly head. I could imagine a country where the secular/church battle for authority really came to a head (say Mexico between the wars, or France in the late 19th century) trying this on, but the result would be hundreds of thousands of people being married in their own eyes, and in the eyes of the church, but not in the eyes of the state. I think you can see where that would lead. As such, I don't think that it is a viable option. I don't think people would "drift away and not bother". I think it would cause a grave constitutional crisis.
PJ