Religion, Marriage, and “Other People’s” Opinions

Welcome to another installment of what Whitney and I are calling ‘collective blogging.’ To refresh everyone’s memory, we will both be writing blog entries on the same topic as an exercise to see how different our thought processes and memories are. Hopefully it will be good practice for an idea we have for NaNoWriMo 2009 – to write the same novel, but separately.

Today’s Topic:  Interfaith Marriage

A bit of background:

I was raised Catholic.  Attended Catholic school from pre-school through high school.  Went to church every Sunday, plus Holy Days of Obligation.  Et cetera, et cetera.  But by the time I was leaving high school, I was a bit turned-off by organized religion… or at least, by the organized religion in which I was raised.  By the time I entered college, it seemed rather hypocritical to me, the whole religion-thing.  Why did some people show up for church on Christmas and Easter, but none of the other days of the year?  Why should I tell a priest all my “sins” when in reality he is no less human than I am?  Were all the new friends I was making somehow wrong for not being Catholic?  Add in the fact that I was being trained as a scientist and experiencing all the questions about God vs. religion that come along with science, and it’s little wonder I eventually turned away from religion in general.

I don’t say this to make you think I’ve given up on the concept of a higher power.  I haven’t.  But I suspect my feelings on today’s topic might be better understood if you know what I think, in my life.   I have even mused about my feelings about religion in previous blogs, here.

All that said, I think it’s OK to now tell you that the reason I feel compelled to write a blog on interfaith marriage is that I am engaged to a man who was raised decidedly not Catholic.  He is, like me, a scientist, and therefore has trouble with organized religion (among other reasons for his issues with it).  So when it came time to begin envisioning our wedding ceremony, the decision to go non-denominational was pretty darn easy.  No one on his side getting annoyed by the Catholic traditions, no one on my side getting annoyed by his family’s traditions.  We’ve already discussed how we’d like to raise any future children, so we figured we had closed the book on people having problems with our wedding.  Right?

WRONG!

Apparently having a non-denominational wedding ceremony does not exempt you from the judgment and narrow-mindedness of those who believe their religion and their way is the only way.  Alex and I never even thought of our marriage as an “interfaith marriage” until this week!  Which led me to ask the question… what is the big deal about interfaith marriage?

To be able to answer this, I needed to first figure out what interfaith marriage means.  Is it just a marriage between two people of completely different traditions, like Islam and Judaism?  Or are the finer differences just as important, like when one person is Methodist and the other is Baptist?  Also, is it really that uncommon for people of different faiths to want to get married?  Are Alex and I truly part of an anomolous group of people?  So I started thinking, and digging.

The first thing I found out is that interfaith marriage is a much bigger deal than I ever gave it credit for.  A quick search on Google, or on Amazon.com for “interfaith marriage” reading material will tell you that much.  Then I found out that while it’s not quite as problematic for people within a major denomination, such as Protestantism, to marry, it is still considered an interfaith marriage when that happens.  And then there are the statistics.  27% of Americans are in interfaith marriages, and the number goes up to 37% when you start counting interdenominational marriages.

OK… 37% is a pretty large number.  So, what is the big deal, exactly?  There are so many people who clearly think this works out fine that it seems like it should create fewer social issues than it actually does.  If the couple doing the marrying is OK with it, I figure that should be all that matters.  Furthermore, in the US, marriage is more a legal contract than a religious one – that’s why you need a license from the state if you want to get married.  So if the state the couple lives in is OK saying they’re married, shouldn’t that be it?  I know that many people desire the blessing of their deity on their marriage – but that’s just it, it’s a blessing.  It’s not a sanction, at least not in this country.  Which is why I’d love to know how people get away with telling other people they disagree with a marriage on religious grounds – not on legal grounds, on religious grounds.  What gives?

And then I realized what gives.  The First Amendment.  That’s what gives.  It says every American has the right to freedom of religion – which means people who want to have an interfaith marriage and practice whatever religion they want, can, without having a problem – and it also guarantees the right to freedom of speech – which means if someone wants to stand up and oppose an interfaith marriage at the top of their lungs, they can.  In my experience the kind of people who would oppose an interfaith marriage are the kind of people who have no problems telling other people why they are right and everyone else is wrong.  Perhaps this is why it is such a big deal, even though maybe it ought not to be.

I am perfectly happy going into an interfaith marriage.  I don’t believe my children will be any worse for wear when they are exposed to more than one set of religious traditions.  And I don’t believe either one of us (or anyone else who has entered into an interfaith marriage) is condemned to eternal damnation for marrying outside any one religion.  I think the people who take issue with this type of thing are making a mountain out of a mole hill, and ultimately taking away from a day that is about the couple in question, and nobody else’s feelings or beliefs.

But that’s just my two cents.  Good thing I’m constitutionally protected to give them out.

If you want to read about Whitney’s take on interfaith marriage, go here !

On Being Betrothed

Welcome to another installment of what Whitney and I are calling ‘collective blogging.’ To refresh everyone’s memory, we will both be writing blog entries on the same topic as an exercise to see how different our thought processes and memories are. Hopefully it will be good practice for an idea we have for NaNoWriMo 2009 – to write the same novel, but separately.

Today’s Topic: Thoughts and Memories on the First Week of Being Engaged

A major milestone was reached for me since I last posted on my blog.  I am now engaged!  Since Whitney and I can now say we both have experienced the first week of betrothal, we decided to make that the topic of this collective blog post.

You know how in school, when you’re writing those God-awful essays for college entrance or scholarship contests, they like to ask you to pick one word to describe yourself or an experience and then explain why you chose that word?  Well, the only word I can think of to sum up the experience of the first week of being an engaged person is this: surreal.   I definitely never thought I would get married (you can ask any of my friends, they will back me up on that), and I definitely never thought I would be getting married to Alex.  He is definitely everything I never knew I always wanted.  And I hate to say this, because I think it probably sounds awful, but I can only remember the proposal in bits and pieces.  I know what we did and what he said before it, and after it, but the actual proposal is a bit hazy.  Alex feels the same way; people ask him what he said and he can’t remember!  It’s like someone else’s life to both of us right now.

On top of the feeling that I’ve been removed from my body, there is the realization that one of my closest friends was dead-on balls accurate about one thing: people who are normally rational human beings can become totally crazy when you announce a wedding.  Demands get made that you didn’t see coming.  Things get blown out of proportion that you never would have thought were a big deal to someone.  And then there are the politics of weddings – the guest list, the budget, the wedding party.  And it’s only the first week!  Then there are the questions that have been asked, more than once, by many people, that I didn’t realize you have to be prepared to answer right away.  For example, many people have asked us if I cried when he proposed, or if he cried when he proposed.  To me this is weird, because I’m not really a crier and neither is Alex.  Were we supposed to cry?  Is there something wrong with us because we didn’t?  Obviously this is not as strange a question as I think it is because many people have asked it, but it sure threw me off!  I’ve also been asked many times, in some cases the day after the proposal, if we’d set a date yet.  This one I understand, and it’s a logical question to ask a newly engaged couple, but still!  The other one that threw me off the first time I got it was whether or not I have decided on colors for the wedding.  Again, now that I’ve gotten the question a bunch of times and thought about the reasons, I understand this question.  But it’s pretty overwhelming at first!  (Actually, everything is overwhelming at first…)

And then we come to the ring.  I love my ring.  It’s beautiful and I am so proud of the way Alex put it together.  I expected people to want to see it.  I expected myself to look at it a lot.  I did NOT expect that I would be as paranoid as I am about having something happen to it.  Some things are obvious, like don’t wear it if you’re cleaning or doing loads of dishes.  Other things I struggled with at first, and am still struggling with, like hand washing, and showering, and sleeping with it on.  I work in a lab, and it never once occurred to me before I was engaged that you have to decide whether or not you want to wear your ring at work, because lab gloves don’t exactly fit over the ring.  I wear mine, and got bigger gloves, for the record.

So my general impression of being engaged, a little over one week in, is that it’s a lot to take in, and I still haven’t fully absorbed it all!

If you want to read Whitney’s take on her first week of being engaged, you can read it here.