Marriage

The following policy was agreed by the EHF Board in March 2008:

Some  people choose to live together and to found a family without marrying.  This policy applies where legally-recognised marriage is concerned:-

1. Marriage is a voluntary and legal union between two people and commits them to sharing obligations with each other.

2. The right to marriage and divorce must be guaranteed and regulated by civil law.

3.  The authorities must treat all who seek marriage or divorce equally,  regardless of lifestance (whether religious or non-religious), ethnic  origin, sexual orientation and gender.

4. The authorities must  provide a neutral option, not based on a lifestance (again, whether  religious or non-religious) for contracting marriages.

5. If  they give legal recognition to religious ceremonies, they must equally  give legal recognition to ceremonies based on a non-religious  lifestance.

At our colloquium in Athens in May 2008 Baard Thalberg explained the background to our adopting this policy:

Before  we began forming our position on marriage we needed to find out the  span of opinions within our Member Organisations. And then we sought not  to offend any Member Organisation. We found that almost the whole  spectrum of positions were present, from the Norwegians who perform  legally recognised weddings to others who think they should only be  performed by agencies of the state in a strict secular way. There is  also the difference between the short-term tactical way of dealing with  the current situation in various countries to a more long-term strategic  position.

So how can we find common principles bridging this gap?

I’ll start with reading our position [above] and then go into the details and the considerations we made.

In EHF’s position on marriage several considerations where made.

Firstly  we needed to define to whom this is relevant. It is our view that adult  couples regardless of sexual orientation and gender have the right to  enter into marriage and or partnership. We favour the term marriage in  both cases but partnership laws are and have been a necessary  intermediate step on the way to implement a common marriage law in  several countries.

We  did not take into consideration if marriage also should be available  for a group of people. We have not formed a policy about polygamy.

In  an early draft we mentioned that marriage is for two people who love  and care for one another. But love is not necessary, even though most  will admit that it is a good thing. We do not question people’s  motivation for marriage as long as it is voluntary.

We  state that marriage is a voluntary commitment, i.e. it shall not be  forced upon anyone. We have not considered to what degree an arranged  marriage is to be viewed as forced.

Thirdly  marriage and divorce must be regulated by civil law. This means that  civil law is above e.g. sharia and the Ten Commandments.

The  state is responsible for providing a secular and neutral service for  those who want to marry or enter partnership. This is a public service.

If  religious organisations have the right to perform marriage ceremonies,  as a supplement to and partly on behalf of the state, then all religious  and life-stance organisations must be treated equally and given the  same opportunities, though they might not want to exercise this right.  This is important in countries with state churches e.g. Scotland and  Norway, but less relevant in countries with stricter secular practices  in this respect, e.g. France.

When  religious and life-stance organisations perform weddings, either as a  one-step operation or as a second ceremony or blessing, they add value  to the legal procedure, but they cannot limit the right of individuals  in respect to the law, even though some will feel a strong moral  obligation to also stay within specific religious moral codes. Religious  and life-stance positions are not a part of the legal contract that a  marriage is.

When we  state that “the authorities must treat all who seek marriage or divorce  equally, regardless of life-stance (whether religious or non-religious),  ethnic origin, sexual orientation and gender”, this of course will not  in many cases be an obligation the churches will recognise. Many if not  most of them strongly oppose partnership and in others it is highly  controversial. And under freedom of belief they have the right to refuse  to provide services they think are contrary to their teaching.

This content last updated 14 October 2011 @ 1:29 pm