Orr issues first marriage license of 2007 (why?)
And here is the press release,
Tuesday, January 02, 2007People argue Marriage Equality with me (it's a frame meaning Gay Marriage; it doesn't mean everyone is equally entitled to marry) and my response is anything requiring us to pay David Orr for a license, isn't an inalienable right. For Cook County to license, means discrimination of some sort (like wait 24 hours to think it over unless David Orr waives it). You can't avoid it. You can only change the County's criteria for taking your check and giving you a license.
Today marked the 17th consecutive year that Cook County Clerk David Orr married the couple that obtained the first marriage license issued in the new year.
DG, 22, and RG, also 22, received the first marriage license of 2007 and were married by Clerk Orr in the traditional first marriage ceremony. The newlyweds reside in Virginia but have relatives who live in Chicago.
Orr is the only county clerk in Illinois with the authority to perform marriages. He asked a judge to waive the standard 24-hour waiting period so he could conduct the ceremony this morning.
The Clerk's office paid the couple'’s license fee and is also giving the newlyweds donated gift certificates redeemable for: a show at Steppenwolf Theatre, dinner at a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant, and a weekend stay at a Chicago Hilton Hotel.
Or, you can simply pull the County out of it all together.
Years ago I sat a few desks down from the expert on custom marriages at Social Security's Great Lakes Payment Center. He knew the ins-and-outs of Native American and Chinese Custom Marriages. He was the guy claims examiners throughout the midwest turned too to verify marriages for SSA claimants married before the laws on marriage became standardized in the 1920s or so. (google around for the history of marriage licensing; there is quite a bit out there).
I wonder if it wouldn't be best to pull Government back out of the marriage business. If there is a need to document a beneficiary for spousal benefits, then simply allow a person to make a one-time irrevocable declaration of the beneficiary. (That'll make you think hard; forget the 24 hour sobering up window.)
Put Marriage and Family back onto Churches, culture, and society. At least if there are breakdowns in Family life, critics can't blame the state. Not David Orr's job anymore.
8 comments:
Yeah, this is where I lean. I think we should let churches decide who should get married instead of the state.
now wait just a minute there, Bill. skeeter told me you were a hard-line party platform Republican hack. We'll, I've scoured my copy of the GOP platform, and can't find this position anywhere. Care to explain yourself, comrade?
Okay, now, allow me to remove the tounge from my cheek, and say this:
It's not an altogether ridiculous idea, intellectually. But, as a Roman Catholic, I believe that the government should do all it can to promote, defend, and support the institution of the family. And, call me intolerant if you want, I believe (and there are plenty of independant, sociological studies to support the idea that - ) families where there is both a male and a female parent are objectively better for raising children (which I believe is actually the purpose of marriage). Does that mean we should outlaw divorce, or out of wedlock births? Of course not....but we should seek to make it rarer by providing more marital (not to mention pre-marital) guidance and counseling.
This is certainly an area where you are in deep disagreement with the modern Republican Party. Far from the libertarian notion that the government should not play a role in "society," modern conservatives believe that government should play a pivotal role in society by defending and promoting it's most essential building block: the "traditional" family.
I'm with Bill on this one and have been for years. The more government has played a pivotal role in marriage, the weaker marriage and families have gotten.
GOP, we've been doing it your way since the days of "protecting" marriage from interracial couples and inter-faith couples. Government's pivotal role has resulted in the sorry state of marriage and family we have right now. Shifting the responsibility to "protect marriage" from the individuals, couples, families, and religious institutions to the government has been a disaster. Government is horrible, inefficient and ineffective at defending and promoting ideas.
I agree families are better that have both a mother and father raising children. Unfortunately, our current government policies are a huge reason why one parent is often absent, usually the father. In the eyes of government, fathers have become little more than a paycheck to be garnished whether they are allowed to see their child or not. That's a whole other can of worms, but if conservatives really want to protect marriage I would definitely say reforming divorce, domestic violence, child support, and child custody laws should be a much bigger priority than banning gay marriage.
I'd rather see couples signing civil contracts that actually spell out agreements they are entering into and the laws and procedures the government uses enforcing those contracts, than simply giving blood, signing a simple license, and waiting for processing. And I'd rather see those couples routinely updating their contracts as they move through life. This idea of ending marriage licensing in favor of much stronger civil contracts is certainly worthy of strong consideration.
jeff,
I respect, but disagree, with your position.
I am too young to remember the Civil Rights era, and never lived in the Jim Crow South. I'm not sure what arguements they used to justify the laws against inter-racial marriage. But even IF "protecting marriage," generally, was one of them, it was most likely 'code' for protecting the purity of the race. In this case (for me, at least) "protecting marriage" isn't 'code' for anything. It is what it is.
From a benefits angle, I can actually get behind Bill's idea of a "one-time irrevocable declaration of the beneficiary." But I think that the government should continue to license and administer the institution of "marriage," and it should do so only between a man and a woman.
Key words,..."By the powers vested in me by the State of Illinois, I now pronounce you..."
Discuss!
Look Bill, the General Assembly at some point in the past (and I suspect it may have been a Republican-run legislature) passed a law giving the Cook County Clerk the right to perform marriage ceremonies. If you don't like it, call your legislators and have them introduce legislation to change it.
Just be grateful that apparently Orr is somewhat less inept at marrying people than he is at running elections.
"If you don't like it, call your legislators and have them introduce legislation to change it."
Isn't that the point of a "blog"? It would seem the modern way to "call you legislator" (raise an issue) is to post on a blog.
I don't have a problem with Orr. I have a problem with people telling me marriage is a right. It isn't. That we have to pay David Orr for a license evidence of that.
So, I thought I'd enlarge the problem a bit (Eisenhower's method: got a problem you can't solve; make it bigger).
So rather than debate whether Illinois should allow same sex marriage. Why not just take Illinois and the counties out of the mix all together. (It was only after the Civil War that they got into the licensing business in the first place.)
The first problem that comes to mind are all these benefits dependent on marriage...
...so, ok...have everyone declare a beneficiary... and make it a one-time irrevocalbe declaration.
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