Should Marriage be “More Convenient”?

There’s been a pretty interesting discussion happening at the Washington Post website under the column that Lisa Miller wrote about my views — it was posted on Thursday and ran in the print edition on Saturday.  What’s interesting is that, in the print edition, it ran next to an article about how more and more couples are asking relatives and friends, rather than clergy, to officiate their wedding ceremonies.  That prompted this comment from laboo:

Huh? This commentary is so off-target in so many ways, it makes me wonder whether the writer even understands the process.

The state is the sole issuer of marriage licenses. Anyone properly authorized by the state can perform the marriage ceremony; the writer acknowledges this. (And, as a companion article points out, the Unitarians have a quick path to obtaining state authorization…)

Nothing can compel Tony Jones, or any other minister, to marry any individuals. Pastors often turn down requests for weddings, for numerous and varied reasons. Usually this is on a case-by-case basis, but Jones is well within his authority (and moral right) to take the position he does. It’s not as if he’s in any way frustrating the rights of others to get married. There’s always the non-inclusive church down the block, or the justice of the peace.

That companion article (right next to it on the printed page) points out the increasing number of weddings being officiated by relatives or friends. It also notes that pastors are being asked to do fewer and fewer church weddings. That contravenes this article’s assertion that “Americans love their church weddings”.

In fact, it seems to me that couples desiring a church wedding should first become members of that church, in that way their church wedding will have some real significance in the context of their own faith community. Couples who book any random church because it’s nearby, quaintly or majestically photogenic, or simply big enough, can’t expect to reap any spiritual benefit from their church weddings. Priorities, friends, priorities.

Clearly Tony Jones has his priorities straight. He’s taking a moral stand — one quite unusual for an evangelical pastor. One which in no way restricts the freedom of Minnesotans to marry. One which, in fact, highlights the state’s current discriminatory practice that greatly restricts Minnesotans’ freedom to marry. But the writer’s main concern seems to be “convenience”. Try a drive-thru Vegas chapel if that’s the criterion.

Read that and all the comments here.