SSM: ALTARED STATES: Both sides of the same-sex marriage debate often get muddled up when considering the fact that marriage is a religious as well as a civil institution. Opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes speak as if the fact that something is condemned by the Bible is enough to justify its illegality, or as if civil marriage needs to mirror sacramental or religious marriage. That’s pretty clearly not true in any country without an established religion.

But there are serious misunderstandings on the pro-SSM side as well. Two of the ones I’ve seen are: 1) Marriage is a religious institution, so the state shouldn’t get involved, and 2) Marriage is a religious institution, so if civil marriage doesn’t recognize e.g. Unitarian same-sex unions, that’s religious discrimination.

Lots and lots of religions have some kind of religious ceremony and status for marriages. (For some reason, pro-SSM writers tend to use the shorthand, “Marriage is a sacrament.” American discussions of religion and public life often include misunderstandings of Protestant concepts; this is the most prominent example I can think of where an American policy debate features a misunderstanding of a Catholic concept!)

But marriage is and has pretty much always been a civil institution as well. (For a really good discussion of the distinctions from a Catholic perspective, go here.)

And if marriage serves necessary civil purposes, purposes which can be fulfilled without reference to religion, I’m not sure why the fact that religions also honor this bond is even relevant. In other words, “Marriage is religious so it can’t be civil too” strikes me as a total non sequitur.

And that, in my view, is also the answer to the religious-discrimination question. Civil marriage exists for civil reasons–e.g. to secure the benefits to society that come from ensuring that kids mostly grow up with mom and dad. Religions may develop their own reasons for honoring marriage, and their own definitions of the word, but that doesn’t mean they get to map their definitions and purposes onto the secular definitions and purposes. If some religion decides that polygamy, or brother-sister unions, or whatever, is especially exalted and wonderful, that has exactly no impact on the secular arguments for and purposes of marriage.

Keeping civil marriage secular is not “religious discrimination.”