Missouri GOP wants to eliminate marriages for everyone unless they're done in a church

[DonViejo]

Source: LGBTQ Nation



By David Reddish · Tuesday, January 9, 2018



As part of the Republican party’s ongoing effort to undo a century of progress for, well, just about everyone, the Missouri state GOP legislature has introduced a new bill seeking to totally redefine marriage.

Missouri still has an unconstitutional law on the books defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. This new bill HB 1434, according to sponsors, would completely nullify marriage in the public arena for everyone.

The term “marriage” would apply only to religious institutions, while all state-recognized unions – hereto referred to as marriage – would undergo reclassification as “domestic unions.” Sponsors have created the bill, they say, as a means of protecting churches and businesses against gay encroachment, like asking bakers to design cakes for gay weddings.

Though the move may seem high-minded and egalitarian, the introduction of the bill comes as a reaction to Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case which brought marriage equality to the nation.


Read more: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/01/missouri-gop-wants-eliminate-marriages-everyone-unless-theyre-done-church/

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Christofascist Theocracy

[RKP5637]

3. The GOP, loving the Nazi way. n/t

[RKP5637]

2. Anything to bring misery to people, that's the GOP way ... a really fucked up political party full

of hatred for anyone, everyone and everything!

[Girard442]

4. And they'll rename Missouri "Gilead".

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Has anyone ever told these crazies

that whatever they do for a living, bake, sell, manufacture, manage, direct - they have probably done so for an LGBTQ person?

If you refuse to sell them a cake, can't you refuse to fix their car, or sell them bread, or do their taxes?

The whole country is about to come to a halt when this train leaves the station.

[lagomorph777]

6. I think RePutins should be excluded from marriage,

on the basis that marriage should be between two human beings.

We can't let people like that reproduce.

[mountain grammy]

7. Wow, everything in Missouri must be perfect

if the legislature can waste their time on passing fascist laws directly violating the United State Constitution.

[Moostache]

14. Nope...things here in East Kansas are a bloody mess!!!

The only thing the GOP legislature here has left to do after trashing voting rights (photo ID required), killing off unions (right to work), stifling worker's compensation (over-ruling St. Louis and Kansas City laws requiring an increase in minimum wage) is to simply annex the state to Kansas and officially rename the venue as East and West Kansas...

I HATE living in this red state hellhole. I LOATHE the people who wear their MAGA shit proudly while this state circles the drain. I cannot abide the idiocy and low information, easily misled populace. This place is a sick joke and were it not for a very good job with a progressive thinking, French owned multinational corporation, I would literally run to get out of here...

[mountain grammy]

20. I know they are and my sympathies.

I was being sarcastic. My son't girlfriend is from Kansas City and misses her family, but can't live there.

The legislature taking the minimum raise from St Louis was so wrong. Everything they do is so wrong.

[get the red out]

8. Good luck with that

There aren't nearly as many bat-shit crazy Neanderthals who live to hate gay people as they would like to believe, not even in red states.

[cstanleytech]

9. Won't work as it would be trying to force the states interruption of what the word marriage means

by trying to only allow churches to use the word officially and thus would be a major Constitutional violation.

[brooklynite]

10. A market niche for the Church of Satan.....

[zipplewrath]

11. Do these folks not have two brain cells to rub together?

They can't create a governmentally recognized arrangement that is based upon religion. It doesn't matter what they call it.

And strangely, They're gonna have trouble defining "religious institutions" in a manner that would preclude just about anyone with access to a building as a religious institution. Heck, the Unitarians would make a fortune running gay weddings.

[Kimchijeon]

12. How about no.

[VMA131Marine]

13. This will certainly fall afoul of the First Amendment

because it would seem to require that the State define what a religious institution is. As things are now, pretty much anyone can go online and get themselves declared a "minister" which would then allow them to perform a marriage and the State would have to allow that or it will be explicitly favouring one religion over another, which is unconstitutional.

[onenote]

18. The bill doesn't run afoul of the first amendment because the description of it is wrong.

See post 16.

[jmowreader]

15. Here's the bill

https://legiscan.com/MO/text/HB1434/id/1660987

I just scanned it quickly because it's about the size of Obamacare and is even harder to decipher; I didn't see the part about marriage only being applicable to churches, but the bill essentially amends the entire Missouri Code to change "marriage" to "domestic union."

It looks like it's going to reclassify ALL non-church-sanctified marriages, not just ones entered into after the bill passes, to "domestic unions," and that is a big problem for the bill: Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution very clearly states "no State shall...pass any ex post facto Law." This bill is clearly an attempt to pass an ex post facto law so it's unconstitutional even before you get to the First Amendment.

[onenote]

17. No ex post facto issue

It's merely a change in terminology. The rights attendant to a marriage are the same as the rights attendant to a "domestic union" -- anyone who is married at the time the law goes into effect (assuming it's enacted which I find doubtful) automatically will be considered to be a party to a contract of domestic union.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court has long held that the constitutional bar on ex post facto laws applies only to criminal law, not civil law.

See post 16 for more info.

[jmowreader]

21. What they're trying to do won't do what they want

They're trying to prevent the Almighty Cake Makers from having their ovens and piping bags soiled with gay cooties, right? Assuming an Almighty Cake Maker can somehow get "we only provide services for people who have their domestic unions sanctified by a church" past the courts, how are they going to get "we don't provide services to people who get married in Unitarian Universalist churches" past the courts?

[onenote]

22. Agreed.

Put another way...if anyone can have a "marriage" ceremony anywhere, officiated by anyone, then a business operating in interstate commerce that says it only wants to provide services to those whose "marriage" ceremony is conducted by a religious officiant is essentially discriminating on the basis of religious belief or non-belief.

[onenote]

16. A very misleading headline and story.

Last edited Tue Jan 9, 2018, 06:42 PM - Edit history (1)

The bill does not "eliminate marriages for everyone unless they're done in a church."
Rather, what the bill does is replace "marriage" as a legal concept with the concept of a contract of domestic union. This requires changing the terminology in around 300 sections of Missouri law -- everywhere marriage appears, it is replaced with domestic union (or contract of domestic union).

As for "marriages", the bill expressly states that "A civil and independent or religious ceremony of marriage, celebration of marriage, solemnization of marriage, or any other officiation, and administration of the vows of marriage may be conducted or engaged in by the parties to this contract of domestic union by an officiant or other presiding party to be selected by the parties to the
contract. The state shall have no requirement for such ceremonial proceeding which, if performed or not performed, shall have no legal effect upon the validity of the contract of domestic union.

So basically if you want someone to conduct a ceremony and call it a marriage ceremony, you're free to do so. But you still have to separately have entered into a contract of domestic union.

Frankly, this is pretty close to what a lot of folks have argued -- that the government shouldn't be in bed with religion when it comes to the legal concept of "marriage" -- that there should be a civil domestic contract and if people want, without any particular legal significance attaching to it, to have a ceremony in a church or anywhere else that they call a marriage ceremony, they can do so separate and apart from the legal act of entering into a domestic union.

To be honest, I'd be surprised if this bill, which expressly declares that "Beginning August 28, 2018, all current and previous marriages shall be known and referred to as contracts of domestic union" goes anywhere. Somehow I think a lot of people in Missouri aren't going to be comfortable with a law that says that what they thought was a marriage is now legally known as something else.

Link to the bill: http://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills181/hlrbillspdf/4662H.01I.pdf

[VMA131Marine]

26. So here's the problem

The IRS does not consider domestic unions as equal to marriage under US tax law. So yes, you can get "domestic unionised" in Missouri, but you won't be able to claim yourself as married. This will screw a lot of people in MO out of tax benefits. Social Security also does not recognize domestic unions for spousal benefits. If the State doesn't legally recognize marriage, then nobody in MO can get spousal social security benefits or married tax status. If MO only recognizes people as married who get married in church then there are 1st Amendment and 14th Amendment equal protection issues that will render the law unconstitutional.

[onenote]

28. While I don't this bill will ever be enacted I don't think it creates the problem you identify

You are absolutely correct that for federal tax purposes, the term “marriage” does not include registered domestic partnerships, civil unions, or other similar formal relationships recognized under state law that are not denominated as a marriage under that state’s law.

The Missouri bill arguably gets around this by including the following language: "A contract of domestic union shall be the legal equivalent of marriage under the laws of this state." It's not the smoothest solution, but it effectively states that domestic unions, for purposes of state law in Missouri, is the same as a "marriage". The IRS provision is intended to address situations where there are separate legal entities: marriages and civil unions. In Missouri, if you are party to a domestic union you are for legal purposes also married. You might also try to get married in MO without entering into a contract of domestic union. But that would not be a legal marriage for purposes of state law and wouldn't be recognized by the IRS.

But, in any event, this isn't going anywhere.

[Hortensis]

39. "very misleading headline and story." Woulda bet big on that.

And, just like all the rest of the wingnut bills touted here as representing the views of all those evil, bigoted Republicans, of course it won't pass.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

19. "Gay encroachment"

Well, that's a new term for it.

[Ilsa]

23. Easy fix: Start a church.

Create a church for gay weddings. Since they are held in a "church", they are marriages.

[Binkie The Clown]

24. Pastafarians have the best weddings I hear.

[Shrike47]

29. The service is reputedly lovely and gracious.

[tanyev]

25. They realize there are lots of churches out there that do recognize gay marriage, right?

So this essentially accomplishes nothing. Unless the Missouri GOP also plans to create a registry of state-approved churches....

[catrose]

38. Unity World HQ are in Missouri

They marry, ordain, and otherwise view gays as human beings. Pagans will too. Has the legislature thought about this bill really hard?

[TlalocW]

27. Before the Supreme Court came down on the side of Marriage Equality

And the various red states were running around like morons trying to stop it, an Oklahoma state senator wanted the same thing thinking it would stop teh gazy marrying. He was flooded with emails and tweets that if his legislation passed, the only thing he might be stopping would be atheists marrying, but he was guaranteeing the right for gays to marry as even in that state, there were churches willing to wed members of the LGBTQ community.

Evangelical Christians have this blind spot where they can't conceive of a church having different values than they have.

TlalocW

[keithbvadu2]

30. Does synagogue or Muslim house of worship qualify as a "church"?

Does synagogue or Muslim house of worship qualify as a "church"?

[displacedtexan]

31. Germany made Church Only a marriage option a few years ago.

Before the new law, the civil marriage service was mandatory because marriage was a legal contract. Religious ceremonies were optional. Now, if you forego the civil servise, you risk not having the full weight of the federal government behind you in matters of inheritance, divorce, etc.

This sounds like religious wingnuts are looking to preserve the dominance of their reliigious patriarchy. Hope I'm wrong, but I don't trust them.

[Sophia4]

32. I see a lot of growth in the Unitarian Church in Missouri if this passes.

Unitarian Churches marry same-sex couples. At least generally they do.

[turbinetree]

33. Dear Missouri taxpayers have you figured it out yet, why your taxes go up

because you have a right wing bigoted republican legislative body, that has no other time or nothing better to do with there time, they sit in those chairs, but trying to rat fuck human beings, instead of taking your money, for school, roads, etc............and improving your lives...................

And yes I am being condescending.............

[Gore1FL]

34. Misleading headline. It's a matter of terminology.

Civil Unions are State controlled and open for all. The invisible friend blessings are a matter of choice for those who desire them.

How is this a bad thing? It perfectly separates Church and State.

I haven't read the bill. I don't know if there are hidden problems within. But taking religion out of matters of state would seem to be a good thing because, if nothing else, it removes the anti-gay-marriage argument from the bigoted right.

[csziggy]

35. That would piss me off - I was not married in a church or with any religious crap

Not even a ceremony unless you want to count a notary public signing the license and saying, "Guess that's it."

"Though the move may seem high-minded and egalitarian" is total bullshit - it is an attempt to move that state to a theocracy. No state should have the right to force people to marry with religious trappings that they do not believe in.

Oh, and I guess they forget, some churches had clergy who are willing to marry same sex couples so this would not prevent that happening.

[onenote]

41. Please read post 16. You'll be less pissed off.

[JI7]

36. Isn't the governor Jewish ?

[onenote]

40. Pray tell. What does that have to do with anything.

You apparently haven't read the other posts in this thread that demonstrate that the article cited in the OP is wildly misleading. Indeed, the proposed legislation doesn't contain the word church in it anywhere.

[rlegro]

37. Domestic unions?

Gee, I thought Republicans hated unions. And that they detested those "big labor" boss-wives (and domestic union members) who have too many kids, or not enough of them, depending upon their persuasions. If this passes, then the next GOP thing will be a right-to-twerk law.