ESSAY: OF CHURCH, STATE AND MARRIAGE

In an article first published in The Age newspaper, Archbishop Philip Freier, Anglican Primate of Australia, gives his view on the role of church and state in the context of the current debate over same-sex marriage…

Seldom has such a fundamental human institution as marriage been so contested as now. Last month’s ruling by the United States Supreme Court that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional will surely provide impetus in Australia to move towards legislative change, just as the Irish referendum result did. Debate is intensifying.

Since white settlement in Australia, the church has acted as an unofficial guardian for the values and aspirations of marriage, especially as an institution that encourages the flourishing of families.  And marriage carries important social and legal aspects, both in terms of legal protections such as legitimation of children or inheritance rights and in terms of building social climate. The state concerns itself in the regulation of this most personal and intimate of relationships because marriage is a foundational institution to our society.

In Australia the church inherited this role from the English system which had an established church with legal privileges that did not apply in Australia but were long-assumed in the mono-cultural colonies. Church and state seemed natural allies in this cause.

But Australia is vastly more diverse today, and the church’s influence has waned through a variety of causes.  It will never again have the same dominant position as society’s conscience and moral guardian. Christian advocates must accept that we are one voice among many, even though it is often a voice of considerable wisdom and experience.

That being so, it might be thought anomalous that the church remains the state’s representative when it comes to performing marriage, that ministers of religion (along with civil celebrants) act on behalf of the state by performing a legal ceremony that is recognised and legitimised by the state. 

The Marriage Act has already registered significant social changes, such as providing safeguards for de facto partners. Same-sex marriage would be a far more significant step away from the Christian understanding of marriage that prevailed when the law was first enacted. 

While same-sex marriage stretches this conception of marriage it seems that in other respects we as a society have very traditional perspectives. Bigamy or polygamy remain taboo. Yet if the argument from the freedom of human choice stands – that it is unjust to deny people the chance to marry whomsoever they want – then we should recognise that polygamy is widely practised in many societies around the world. Islam allows up to four wives – under certain circumstances – yet when a Melbourne sheikh proposed legalising polygamy several years ago the reaction was outrage. 

It might be time to make sanctioning legal marriage a matter purely for the state.  Perhaps the people who register marriages should simply be public servants who attest to the bona fides of the parties to the marriage. Marriage could be made more accessible by online registration and processing.

Under such a system, Australia would then operate as does much of Europe. There, for example, a couple goes to the state office and the ceremony is performed by a public servant. Then they emerge to enjoy whatever sort of celebration they choose, shared with family and friends. 

Traditional church weddings could still be held in this way, along with ceremonies in the backyard or on surfboards at sea, as now, but they would be separate celebrations from the state-sanctioned legal approval. 

For Christians, of course, holy matrimony includes a particular understanding of what the pair are committing themselves to which goes well beyond what is legislated. The church’s traditional understanding of marriage certainly agrees with the 2004 amendment that is now so controversial: “Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.”

But Christians go further. We believe that marriage is ordained by God, that the vows have a particularly sacred character because they are explicitly made before God, and that the closeness and intensity of loving sexual relationships which are proper only within marriage teach us something of God’s love. (Sadly, we have to recognise that Christians are not much better than the wider population at maintaining this commitment till death – Christians divorce at much the same rate as non-Christians.)

It is no longer reasonable for us to expect that the state’s approach will be as prescriptive and demanding as the Christian understanding, but nor is it reasonable for the state to expect Christians to give up their comprehensive and long-standing view.

So the merit of a simple, one size fits all, legal contract carried out by the state, followed by a personal celebrations of  a near-infinite variety of possibilities, is that it protects particular practices without confining those who do not follow them. 

Christians could preserve their concept of holy matrimony. Of course non-religious couples can be just as sincere and earnest in their vows, but what especially sets the Christian understanding apart from non-believers is that a third party is involved: God. 

Even within Christianity, let alone wider society, what marriage does and should involve is a contested space. Many Christians support same-sex marriage, seeing it as an urgent issue of justice, but the centre of gravity among believers remains likely to be towards a conservative understanding.

One thing we know because we have seen the pace of social change is that we live in a society with a high appetite for social reform. A rethink of the place of the state in regulating marriage may be helpful. A revisiting of the delegation of a state function to all sorts of independent citizens, whether religious or civil celebrants, may produce separation of state and non-state actors in this important and foundational institution of marriage. It might just strengthen the intention of those who look to marriage as a further and more complete step in their relationship.

Philip Freier is Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne and Primate of Australia. This article was first published in The Age newspaper.