MARRIAGE - THE HORRIBLE IMPLICATIONS IF IT IS A SACRAMENT
 
Marriage is defined by the Christian faith and the state as the lifelong union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of any other sexual partners.

If you define marriage as a loving union between a man and a woman then marriage is not a ceremony or a legal contract but a process and sometimes a lifelong one.  If so the state should talk about a marital contract as in how the man and woman relate to their secular rights such as inheritance etc.  A marital contract would mean the legal aspects and in itself is not marriage but is about marriage.  Marriage seen as a sacrament given during a ritual is only an insult to real marriage.
 
A sacrament is a rite that forges your relationship to and with God by which he transmits his grace to you or his supernatural help.
 
To say that marriage is a sacrament - a rite which gives you grace from God, which the Catholic Church says, though even people who turned down a call from God to join the religious life can get the sacrament is scandalous because it implies gays cannot have the sacrament. Gays cannot have this sacrament that helps to achieve eternal salvation. That’s very hurtful. It is really saying that same sex couples should not be granted the same supernatural helps to love and stay together that opposite sex couples have.
 
Catholics permit divorce and remarriage when a marriage is non-sacramental. If a Catholic marries an unbaptised person such as a Hindu, the marriage is real but not indissoluble. The Church says the marriage is not sacramental for the sacrament of marriage cannot take place except between two people who are baptised in the sight of the Church and God. It is not true that the Catholic Church says divorce is wrong. It says that divorce when a marriage is sacramental is wrong for such marriage is broken only by death. The Church had the nerve to meddle in politics and campaign against divorce when its problem was not with divorce as such but about trying to get special treatment for sacramental marriage. It was purely about religion. Nobody minds the Church commenting on the social dangers of certain policies but when it brings magic and faith into it, it is a different matter.
 
The Church should say that marriage is a sacrament only for the baptised person but it does not. Clearly the implication is that the person is being punished by the Church.
 
The notion that a sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved clearly suggests that the grace of God makes the marriage real. But that contradicts the fact that marriage would only be a legal bond before God first and foremost and perhaps before the state. The grace would be irrelevant to the integrity of the bond. Grace and the bond would be two separate things. It would be like saying that if a couple get a pile of money from their parents to help them set up home together that they are more married than the impoverished couple that gets nothing and who marry quietly in a shack that passes for a chapel.
 
Marriage for Christians has to reflect the teaching of Jesus that the Genesis account where God made Adam the master of Eve is true. It has to reflect the Christian teaching from St Paul that man is the head of woman and woman should keep her head covered to symbolise this. The Epistle to the Ephesians shows that marriage is to reflect the marriage of Christ and the Church with the man being like Christ and the Church the bride, the inferior for the Church is inferior to Christ. It is hard to believe that a marriage where Christians do not agree with this teaching could be valid. Real marriage would be the union of a woman to a man as her superior. Christian marriage is degrading to women and is an insult that Christian men offer to women. It is even worse considering that men have a stronger inclination to abusing people and beating up and manipulating others than women have. Most violent crimes are committed by men.

The Catholic Church talks a lot about what makes a marriage a invalid but it never refuses the sacrament of marriage to a couple who agree with divorce and remarriage and separation nor does it even check!

To say that marriage is a sacrament is to encourage people to marry believing this superstition: “Marriage is hard so when it is a sacrament it will be easier and you will gain strength to work through your trials and your marriage will be safe.” Nobody can know which religion is true and therefore if marriage is really a sacrament. Nobody knows what religion has the best evidence. Therefore religious faith is just feeling and not real belief.
 
Catholic weddings cannot be valid for they lead people into marriage with false hope and are just as invalid as weddings carried out when one partner is just a con after the other’s money. Even what may be false hope is just as bad for you need strong proof. The Catholic Church has blessed weddings and cars and given many people an unrealistic security. In the case of the cars, people become a bit less careful when the priest has blessed it. And this bit less careful has led to many road-deaths. The Church and state trick people into marriage by getting them to undertake something so serious and giving them no reason to think that marriage itself is wrong – all they care about is not what is right nor in people making informed decisions but getting the chance to feel smug about their victims accepting their rules. It makes them feel important.
 
The Church teaches that the sex act is so important that it binds two people together for life for the union of bodies signifies union in every possible and most intimate way. It follows then that since they say God unites that husband and wife should make sure that religious duties are carried out and persuade her or him to be very religious. The holier the better. Marriage is about giving the Church power in principle. But the Church faces too much derision and indifference these days to try and implement that rule. A marriage between a Protestant and a Catholic must be in some serious sense incomplete and therefore sinful.

The Roman Catholic Church portrays marriage as a sacrament between a man and a woman only and for life.  While another religion might see marriage as a contract the Catholic Church says it is something more important than that.  It follows then that the Church sees forcing a religion that views marriage as non-sacramental to conduct same sex weddings as better than forcing the Catholic Church!  The Church will say marriage is a sacrament and does not belong to her but to God so the state cannot meddle with it.   If Catholicism is man-made and there is no doubt that it is when you consider how it fed off hate for centuries - Protestants were only "forgiven" relatively recently then the sacraments are not sacraments but placeboes and DO belong to man.
 
The Church teaching about marriage is ridden with prejudice. Catholics need to get wed outside the Church. There are principles of love and honesty that are at stake. Do not validate them by being married in Church.