My Wife and Her Husbands

Mark,
Appreciate the clarification, but as I said, since we have both left Christianity and chosen other paths, Paul's opinions on the subject are irrelevant to our lives anyway.

Just an observation on the difference between civil marriage and divorce versus religious marriage and divorce.

Many, including me, ignore religious institutions and use only civil services for marriage (wish I'd known about humanist celebrants back then!). Also noteworthy are those who refuse to use civil marriage services in states that deny such rites for same-sex couples. There is no greater manifestation of civil disobedience than that which so deeply pervades one's personal life.

Another quirk of the argument that civil law should not interfere with a claimed religious monopoly on making rules for marriage: banning same-sex marriages violates the desire of some religious groups to perform same-sex marriages, and so involves a secular trampling on religious turf. Surely this should be more worrying to true defenders of religious freedom from state interference.

By the way, civil bans (with religious underpinnings) on polygyny also impede some established religious marriage traditions such as in Islam, and effectively forced a change of doctrine upon the LDS Church in exchange for Utah's statehood.

The recurring pattern is redefining "religious freedom" as the right of the dominant religious group to impose its rules on all, including those of other religions.

I have to admit that this really looks a lot simpler if you aren't trying to base everything on a view that the contents of your present cranium have to exist in eternal monogamy until the end of the Universe.

Just an observation.

Lepidopteryx

If I am interpreting Paul correctly in Corinthians 7, 10-17, you are not an adulterer.

However, technically speaking, the Catholic Church lost the priesthood, by their own admission. They coined the phrase “The dark ages” because the earth was in apostasy and was without the priesthood. They never got it back.

Based upon this, your husband is not an adulterer either, according to my interpretation of the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians.

Mark
Always seek the truth.

I guess that according to the Catholic church, my husband is still married to his first wife - they were married in the Catholic church. He is no longer Christian, so I don't know if the church thinks it still has claim on him or not. I know that he no longer claims it, so the church's opinion isn't relevant to our lives.

My first marriage took place in a Baptist church, not a Catholic one, but since according to the Bible, anyone who divorces for any reason other than adultery is an adulterer themselves, I must be. I didn't divorce him because he was sleeping around (even though he was); I divorced him because he threw a television at me. The Bible doesn't give permission to divorce over airborne appliances. But I'm no longer Christian either, so as far as I'm concerned, the Biblical rules don't apply to me.

“I'm surprised that those who oppose same-sex marriage on the grounds that marriage is "sacred" don't go even further with this line of belief. They should also then try to prohibit judges, sea captains, and me from performing secular (godless) marriages, which I do regularly as both a Notary Public and a Humanist Celebrant.”

Marriage is a sacrament. It is the highest ordinance you can receive from god here on earth and should be respected.

But religion should also respect civil unions of a man and a woman that are lived in chastity. That is: sexual relations only with each other.

That is one of the reasons my wife and I are no longer catholic. As long as you respect the rules and purpose of marriage and your commitment to each other, you are not “living in sin”, as a catholic priest once told us.

It doesn’t matter who marries you as long as you respect that vow you have made with each other.

It is my opinion that god will respect you for your commitment in your civil union (between a man and a woman).

However, he has made it abundantly clear what he thinks of same sex unions.

Mark
Always seed the truth.

JONESM2;
I agree with Professor Silverman that a clear distinction needs to be made between religious unions and civil unions. That said, I've always been curious about the limitations that exist on civil unions. If a married couple consentingly has extra-marital sex with, say another couple, should the state have the right to intervene? According to the "rules" of civil unions, they are adulterers even though both are consentingly so.
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It's not adultery if both spouses say it's okay. It's just swinging, which is legal.
Adultery is when one spouse decides to have extramarital sex without the approval, indeed often without the knowledge of the other spouse, and while it is grounds for divorce, it is not a criminal offense. The state does not intervene in cases of consensual extra-marital sex.

I agree with Professor Silverman that a clear distinction needs to be made between religious unions and civil unions. That said, I've always been curious about the limitations that exist on civil unions. If a married couple consentingly has extra-marital sex with, say another couple, should the state have the right to intervene? According to the "rules" of civil unions, they are adulterers even though both are consentingly so.

Civil contract vs. sacrament ... important distinction that many opponents of gay marriage fail to grasp. It's fine for a church to refuse to marry same-sex couples; to put the government in that position is to impose a religious definition on a civil rite.