A Letter on the False Compromise

The Los Angeles Times printed some letters responding to the recent commentary by Douglas Kmiec (which I analyzed here) calling for the False Compromise. Sandra Wolber of Granada Hills wrote:

I agree with Douglas Kmiec that the civil and religious aspects of the union of two individuals should be separated.

This is already possible, at least from a human perspective. A bride and a groom can get legally married in at a non-religious location by someone who isn't clergy. Likewise, any couple (or trio, or any other grouping) can undergo a religious ceremony without a civil involvement. So, we don't need the false compromise to do this. People who want that split can already have it. Let the rest of us keep marriage intact.

The state could fulfill its regulatory function by issuing civil union licenses to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation; then those couples who so desire could have a marriage within their own religious tradition.

Why just couples? If the state is going to be obligated to license any personal relationship, why limit it to couples?

[The rest is below the fold; make the jump if you want to read it.]

There are several others letter printed, too.

One of the mistakes being made is a tacit assertion that it is religion, and only religion, that restricts marriage to being a bride + groom union. This may be fed, in part, by marriage defenders who invoke religion or religious texts in their defense of marriage. While I do believe that marriage has divine origins, I often note that one need not be religious to understand that marriage unites the sexes, nor to see the value in having state licensing reflect that.

Even governments that officially rejected religion and promoted atheism, such as the Soviet Union, have recognized that marriage unites the sexes.