Tag: Pennsylvania

You Don’t Need to Believe in God to thank God for the ACLU

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

Do civil liberties in the United States really depend on non-Quakers having access to self-uniting marriages (amazing what you find when you go to Philadelphia’s municipal offices‘ webpages):

What is a self-uniting marriage, you ask? No, it doesn’t mean you fulfill your self-love:

For couples who want to skip a formal marriage ceremony, usually their first thought is to just get a marriage license, go to city hall and get married by a judge, magistrate or mayor. But in Pennsylvania, getting married doesn’t even have to be that formal.

Pennsylvania is one of the few states that offers couples the option of a self-uniting marriage license.

The custom is rooted in the Quaker faith and is actually part of a formal wedding ceremony. According to the book Quakerism: A Religion Meaningful for Today’s World, the couple walks into the ceremony together and later rises and states their vows to each other. At the conclusion of the event, all of the witnesses sign the marriage certificate.

But the ACLU became alarmed when some residents of Pennsylvania did not have access to a self-uniting marriage (civil libertarians don’t seem to care that residents of Ohio don’t have access to this kind of union):

Because Pennsylvania has a large Quaker population, the license is available in most counties. But you don’t have to be a Quaker to take advantage of the service; the state American Civil Liberties Union took care of that in 2007.

An Allegheny County couple had been denied the self-uniting license because they told the Register of Wills that they weren’t part of the Quaker faith. With the help of the ACLU, the couple sued, and the court ruled that the license cannot be denied to anyone.

That’s a relief.

But it wasn’t enough to keep Donald Trump from becoming POTUS. Never forget, never Trump.

How Protestants Read

Published on by D. G. Hart26 Comments

John Fea a while back posted this as his quote of the day:

“Good God! The People of Pennsylvania in seven years will be glad to petition the Crown of Britain for reconciliation in order to be delivered from the tyranny of their new Constitution.” John Adams on the democratic, unicameral 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution that gave all male taxpayers the right to vote. (Adams to Benjamin Rush, 12 October 1776).

I can imagine three major Protestant approaches to interpreting this remark.

1) The nationalist Protestant: “See? This proves the founders really were orthodox Christians.”

2) The experimental Protestant: “See? This proves the founders were not regenerate since they took the Lord’s name in vain.”

3) The two-kingdom Protestant: “See? This shows how fragile the American founding was (and what’s wrong with democracy).”

In other words, what is political should stay political. We don’t have to insert religion everywhere.

Of course, I left out the neo-Calvinist response: “See what happens when you legalize gay marriage? What’s that you say, gay marriage didn’t come along for another two centuries? Two centuries, two kingdoms, what’s the difference?”