Marriage and Pagan celebrancy.
There's been some recent dialogue in the Australian pagan community around religious marriage celebrants. This has intersected with the ongoing debate around same-sex marriage rights in Australia, and I find myself standing at the crossroads of the two issues. Legally recognised celebrants can be Pagan in religion, but they cannot be 'Pagan' celebrants. While you cannot have a legally recognised religion in Australia, you can however have sufficient numbers of congregation that the Australian government will recognise a need for specific members of the religion to have the power to legally marry people.
No, don't ask me how that works. I'll be forced to hit you over the head with something heavy and feed you hard liquor.
Shoving my personal reservations around the institution of marriage firmly into a shoebox for now, I still find there to be a grand leap of logic - As a legal contract, marriage is the concern of government. Such a contract can be closely mimicked by various legal gymnastics performed by the individuals concerned or as is currently being shown, the government itself. Needless to say, John Howard wasn't on par with the Russian gymnastics team, and K-Rudd our current Prime Minister isn't quite rocking out in the leotard and colourful ribbon. Such maneuvering can create something which replicates marriage, but still leaves you with an odd tangy after taste. It looks like butter, but on closer inspection you can quite possibly believe it's crisco.
As a social contract and religious observance, marriage is the recognition of a commitment before the community and clan the individual identifies with, by choice and/or by birth. That's the catch, marriage is a social recognition. It carries weight, a legitimacy given to it as a social institution. Some Pagans would like to see celebrants from the community recognised as Pagan celebrants, given the right to legally marry because the community of Pagans in Australia needs such representation. It lends legitimacy to the various religious paths in contemporary Paganism.
There is an assumption here that the current set up is desirable and one that should be prolonged.
Pagan religions, as a general rule, tend not to bother themselves with the same-sex marriage issue. By which I mean to say they commonly don't see an issue. There is no decrying of alternate sexualities as 'sinful' or 'against nature'. The pagan celebrants I know wouldn't blink at being asked to marry a same-sex couple. The Australian government however, tells us that marriage is between a man-shaped person, and a woman-shaped person. That's it. Regardless of the religious beliefs of the people being married, the community they stem from or the persons being married in the first place.
The division is that of the spiritual from the legal. Currently in Australia, a celebrant may perform a commitment ceremony for a same-sex couple. This ceremony will hold the same weight of authority and legal factiness as my claims to virginity past the age of fifteen, but they can still facilitate a ceremony. What they cannot do is ever use the word 'marriage' in said ceremony. Should a legal celebrant refer to the commitment of anyone other than a man-shaped person and a woman-shaped person as a 'marriage' then paratroopers immediately descend from on high and surgically 'cleanse' the entire wedding party. Sorry, commitment party.
So a Pagan celebrant would be unable to legally marry a same-sex couple, whether they agreed with the discriminative laws preventing such a marriage or not.
And we want this?
We want admittance into an institution of our society that discriminates against members of our community? One that tells us, 'Your love is less'. If all rites of pleasure are the rites of the Goddess, then wouldn't marriage be a recognition of those rites? Obtaining the ability to legally marry people should be sufficient, religion doesn't need to be bought into it. Ever. At all. If you desire a religious recognition of your commitment, then do so. But don't intermingle the religious rite with the legal contract.
No, don't ask me how that works. I'll be forced to hit you over the head with something heavy and feed you hard liquor.
Shoving my personal reservations around the institution of marriage firmly into a shoebox for now, I still find there to be a grand leap of logic - As a legal contract, marriage is the concern of government. Such a contract can be closely mimicked by various legal gymnastics performed by the individuals concerned or as is currently being shown, the government itself. Needless to say, John Howard wasn't on par with the Russian gymnastics team, and K-Rudd our current Prime Minister isn't quite rocking out in the leotard and colourful ribbon. Such maneuvering can create something which replicates marriage, but still leaves you with an odd tangy after taste. It looks like butter, but on closer inspection you can quite possibly believe it's crisco.
As a social contract and religious observance, marriage is the recognition of a commitment before the community and clan the individual identifies with, by choice and/or by birth. That's the catch, marriage is a social recognition. It carries weight, a legitimacy given to it as a social institution. Some Pagans would like to see celebrants from the community recognised as Pagan celebrants, given the right to legally marry because the community of Pagans in Australia needs such representation. It lends legitimacy to the various religious paths in contemporary Paganism.
There is an assumption here that the current set up is desirable and one that should be prolonged.
Pagan religions, as a general rule, tend not to bother themselves with the same-sex marriage issue. By which I mean to say they commonly don't see an issue. There is no decrying of alternate sexualities as 'sinful' or 'against nature'. The pagan celebrants I know wouldn't blink at being asked to marry a same-sex couple. The Australian government however, tells us that marriage is between a man-shaped person, and a woman-shaped person. That's it. Regardless of the religious beliefs of the people being married, the community they stem from or the persons being married in the first place.
The division is that of the spiritual from the legal. Currently in Australia, a celebrant may perform a commitment ceremony for a same-sex couple. This ceremony will hold the same weight of authority and legal factiness as my claims to virginity past the age of fifteen, but they can still facilitate a ceremony. What they cannot do is ever use the word 'marriage' in said ceremony. Should a legal celebrant refer to the commitment of anyone other than a man-shaped person and a woman-shaped person as a 'marriage' then paratroopers immediately descend from on high and surgically 'cleanse' the entire wedding party. Sorry, commitment party.
So a Pagan celebrant would be unable to legally marry a same-sex couple, whether they agreed with the discriminative laws preventing such a marriage or not.
And we want this?
We want admittance into an institution of our society that discriminates against members of our community? One that tells us, 'Your love is less'. If all rites of pleasure are the rites of the Goddess, then wouldn't marriage be a recognition of those rites? Obtaining the ability to legally marry people should be sufficient, religion doesn't need to be bought into it. Ever. At all. If you desire a religious recognition of your commitment, then do so. But don't intermingle the religious rite with the legal contract.