Marriage is not an excuse to spend money
‘I know that Bishop Thompson is tired and so am I, but we cannot yield on this one. This has everything to do with the Christian faith as salt and light for the society.’
IREAD with interest the lead Gleaner article on Sunday with the headline ‘Break up’, and it spoke about the experience at the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) Marriage Department that Suffragan Bishop of Kingston Rev Robert Thompson had. I myself have had a similar experience.
Recently, after an indication of Anglican Bishop of Jamaica Dr Howard Gregory that he was protesting the high-handed approach by the RGD in its treatment of marriage officers who are members of the clergy, members of the Public Theology Forum raised the concerns. As it turned out, every single member of the clergy present at that discussion, shared anecdotes of experiences similar to those described by Bishop Thompson and had experiences of curtness, high-handedness, rudeness, brusqueness and contempt from the Marriage Department of the RGD.
There are four options that may be explored in order to account for the conduct of the RDG over the last five years or so, in its treatment of members of the clergy/marriage officers, especially those who are from established churches:
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The first is to account for the brusqueness and punctiliousness of the Marriage Department of the RGD in terms of the poor customer service. It is well known that many who interface with the public from the organisations to which they are employed, whether in the public or private sector, are disempowered human beings and treat with the functions they have to perform as signifiers of their importance in relation to other people. It is what is called the ‘flagman for a day’ syndrome. 2
The second option is that the RGD is interested in the revenue that stands to be generated if it does more marriages. The clergy are the main competitors to the RGD in the performance of weddings. In regard to the performance of weddings, the RGD is the keeper of the record, the regulator of the standard, and a practitioner in that it does perform a lot of marriages by conducting weddings. As an executive agency, the RGD relies on the revenue that it stands to generate. Where weddings are concerned, the RGD earns money when persons apply for official copies or certificates of marriages. If it conducts weddings, it can earn a fee. Many members of the clergy do not actually charge for conducting weddings and also resist any attempt to charge a fee to couples getting married. This is because the cost of weddings is already an obstacle to many who would get married. Any further imposition of fees on the couple is one more reason not to bother with it.
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The RGD has enjoyed a certain disproportionality in terms of members of particular Christian denominations that constitute the majority of employed members of the staff. Usually, the staff is drawn from churches that are American extracts and are new-line churches. The competitive nature that marks their evangelism also spills over in other areas of life. The behaviour of the RGD Marriage Department to members of the clergy from some denominations is evocative of trying to get back at those churches for the years of dominance they enjoyed. One has to concede that there is randomness to their rudeness, because I am not from an established church, and so also is one of my ministerial colleague whose marriage licence the unit has arbitrarily suspended.
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Fourth, this is about changing the understanding of marriage. The argument that the RGD proffers in changing the requirements and regulations is that they inhibit identity theft and guard against human trafficking. In this way, they argue that marriages are one of the ways in which people create new identity for themselves. What the RGD argues that it is seeking to do is to close a loophole and to safeguard a vital service. This, however, would need to involve broad-based consultation. While one sympathises with the revenue challenge facing the RGD and the new mandates in relation to human function, marriages are older than government. Marriage is a civil activity that belongs to the community, not the bureaucracy.
God knows, our young people already see themselves as having too few reasons to get married. Marriage is an important stabilising institution in the community. If you want to see what the reverse looks like, ask anybody who has had to deal with the personal affairs of police personnel.
More profoundly, the Christian Church believes that marriage is a sacrament, a means of the grace of God to sanctify spouses and children, and to bring up children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
I know that Bishop Thompson is tired and so am I, but we cannot yield on this one. This has everything to do with the Christian faith as salt and light for the society. We must not allow the RGD to cause marriages to become more than it is already, threatening to be nothing but a civil activity and an excuse to spend money; it is something that signifies the mystical union between Christ and his Church, it is a creation ordinance given to the human family before sin came into the world. We must not leave it to the pecuniary interest of the RGD to decide.