common law marriage

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On Religion, Love and Government

Published May 14, 2012 by April Fox

To love is not a privilege or even a right, but an inherent trait, like the ability to breathe.

If you believe that god breathed his breath into your existence, then you must also believe that he loved your love into existence. To try to deny anyone the ability to love, freely and openly and in the same manner that all other adult humans are able to love, is to attempt to deny them the right to breathe; in effect, you are assuming the role of the god you claim loves all, sees all, created all-but created this love by mistake.

Do you equate your government with your god? Why then did you visit the courthouse for your marriage license and the church for the ceremony celebrating your commitment? If they are one and the same, why do you require the services of both a magistrate and a minister?

I’m aware that our government spends far more on death and violence than on food, education and healthcare. Our government rests on a foundation of greed and narcissism, power and control. None of those things have anything to do with love. On the edge of sleep, I promise the man beside me that this is forever, and he promises the same to me. There is no need to ask a corrupt government permission to make these promises. If there is a god and he sees everything, he hears our words, sees the love he created, and approves-even without the sanction of the secular government. Would your god deny a man and a woman the ability to love and to be loved by the children they’re raising, because we don’t believe in war and greed, and don’t want to associate our love with those malignant traits?

Does your god truly want people to die alone because they were unable to buy the right to partnership? Does your god truly want to watch families collapse under the weight of your prejudice? Does your god truly, in some inexplicable act of cruelty, want to hurt some of those that he created in his image, as you say, simply because they love?

I will not call the morality of the government with which you equate your god into question here-clearly there is none to consider. My question here is one I’ve asked before: how does your faith allow you to not only judge others and attempt to deny them love, but to use the government to perpetuate that prejudice? Where in your bible is the issue of state government addressed? Where in your bible does it clearly define the terms of a legal marriage license? Where in your bible does it mention your god keeping watch over the courthouse doors to see who leaves with the appropriate secular document granting permission to share the love that he created?

Where in your bible does it say that you have the right to judge anyone at all?

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