By David J.
Stewart
Biblically, Christians don’t need the
government’s approval to get married.
There is no end to the ridiculous amount of licensing required by the
government. God never intended for a man
to be ticketed for going fishing without a license. That is just plain wrong. Not only do they ticket you, they confiscate
all your fishing equipment. It is now a
law in New York that all dog owners must first obtain a
license. Jesus never intended for the
Church to be a licensed business by the State!
Where does this infringement of freedom come to an end? Will
Marriage licensing
is wrong! It is sad that most Christians
just “go along” with whatever the government requires of them, whether it is
right or wrong. There is NO Biblical
obligation for Christians to submit to tyranny. Will you unquestioningly get on the next
train to
A license does not record the marriage itself, only the permission granted for a
marriage to take place. So why do we
need permission from the State to get married?
Since 1837, the proof of a marriage has been by a marriage certificate,
issued at the ceremony; before then, it was by the recording of the marriage in
a church register. Requiring
a couple to obtain a marriage license is unnecessary.
Marriage is a commitment between two people and
God, so that no authorization from the state ought to be required.
George Washington was married without a marriage license.
So, how did we come to the time in
Don’t Marry
the State!
By obtaining a marriage license, you are entering into a business
partnership with the state. I knew an elderly man who’s wife needed
to go into a state nursing home for medical reasons. She was under nursing home care for several
years. When she died, the state came
after the husband’s home and everything he owned, seeking reimbursement. The sad fact is that the state PUNISHES
married couples for being married. As a
consequence, the man was unable to leave an inheritance to his children,
because the state took everything. Lest
you think that is fair, consider that when the states were awarded a half-trillion dollars in damages from the tobacco companies, not one penny was reimbursed
to taxpayers.
A book could be
written concerning the reasons why getting a marriage license is a risky
thing to do.
The state wants to get it’s claws into your estate and assets. By obtaining a marriage license, you are
voluntarily making the government a business partner in your marriage, and the
State may seize your home that you worked a lifetime to pay for.
Here’s a disturbing quote from the Ohio
Bar Association defining Ohio’s Marriage Laws…
“When you repeat your marriage
vows, you enter into a legal contract. There are three parties to that legal
contract: 1) you; 2) your spouse; and 3) the state of
SOURCE:
http://www.ohiobar.org/pub/lawfacts/index.asp?articleid=14
That is scary my friend. So if you’re dumb enough, or ignorant enough, to obtain a marriage license in the State of Ohio, then you are LEGALLY OBLIGATED to your wife, children, and THE STATE OF OHIO!!! Certainly, a good man has no problem providing for his wife and children; however, the law will crucify you without mercy with that “Marriage License” you obtained if your wife drags you into divorce court one day. You will be at the mercy of the State of Ohio.
The following is a well-written pamphlet by Pastor Matt Trewhella…
5 Reasons Why Christians Should Not
Obtain
a State Marriage License
By
Pastor Matt Trewhella
Every
year thousands of Christians amble down to their local county courthouse and
obtain a marriage license from the State in order to marry their future spouse.
They do this unquestioningly. They do it because their pastor has told them to
go get one, and besides, "everybody else gets one." This pamphlet
attempts to answer the question - why should we not get one?
1. The definition of a "license" demands that we
not obtain one to marry. Black’s Law Dictionary defines
"license" as, "The permission by competent authority to do an
act which without such permission, would be illegal." We need to
ask ourselves- why should it be illegal to marry without the State’s
permission? More importantly, why should we need the State’s permission
to participate in something which God instituted (Gen. 2:18-24)? We should not
need the State’s permission to marry nor should we grovel before state
officials to seek it. What if you apply and the State says "no"? You
must understand that the authority to license implies the power to prohibit. A
license by definition "confers a right" to do something. The State
cannot grant the right to marry. It is a God-given right.
2. When you marry with a marriage license, you grant the State
jurisdiction over your marriage.
When you marry with a marriage license, your marriage is a
creature of the State. It is a corporation of the State! Therefore, they have
jurisdiction over your marriage including the fruit of your marriage.
What is the fruit of your marriage? Your children and every piece of property
you own. There is plenty of case law in American jurisprudence which declares
this to be true.
In
1993, parents were upset here in
3. When you marry with a marriage license, you place yourself
under a body of law which is immoral.
By obtaining a marriage license, you place yourself under the
jurisdiction of Family Court which is governed by unbiblical and immoral laws.
Under these laws, you can divorce for any
reason. Often, the courts side with the spouse who is in rebellion
to God, and castigates the spouse who remains faithful by ordering him or her
not to speak about the Bible or other matters of faith when present with the
children.
As
a minister, I cannot in good conscience perform a marriage which would place
people under this immoral body of laws. I also cannot marry someone with a
marriage license because to do so I have to act as an agent of the State!
I would have to sign the marriage license, and I would have to mail it into the
State. Given the State’s demand to usurp the place of God and family regarding
marriage, and given it’s unbiblical, immoral laws to
govern marriage, it would be an act of treason for me to do so.
4. The marriage license invades and removes God-given parental
authority. When
you read the Bible, you see that God intended for children to have their
father’s blessing regarding whom they married. Daughters were to be given
in marriage by their fathers (Deuteronomy
Historically,
there was no requirement to obtain a marriage license in colonial
Notice
you had to obtain your parents permission. Back then you saw godly government
displayed in that the State recognized the parent’s authority by demanding that
the parent’s permission be obtained. Today, the all-encompassing ungodly State
demands that their permission be obtained to marry.
By
issuing marriage licenses, the State is saying, "You don’t need your
parent’s permission, you need our permission." If parents are
opposed to their child’s marrying a certain person and refuse to give their
permission, the child can do an end run around the parent’s authority by
obtaining the State’s permission, and marry anyway. This is an invasion and
removal of God-given parental authority by the State.
5. When you marry with a marriage license, you are like a
polygamist.
From the State’s point of view, when you marry with a marriage license, you are
not just marrying your spouse, but you are also marrying the State.
The
most blatant declaration of this fact that I have ever found is a brochure
entitled "With This Ring I Thee Wed." It is found in county
courthouses across
See,
the State and the lawyers know that when you marry with a marriage license, you
are not just marrying your spouse, you are marrying the State! You are like a
polygamist! You are not just making a vow to your spouse, but you are making a
vow to the State and
your spouse. You are also giving undue jurisdiction to the State.
When Does the State Have Jurisdiction Over a Marriage?
God
intended the State to have jurisdiction over a marriage for two reasons - 1).
in the case of divorce, and 2). when
crimes are committed i.e., adultery, bigamy, etc. Unfortunately, the State now
allows divorce for any reason, and it does not prosecute for adultery.
In
either case, divorce or crime, a marriage license is not
necessary for the courts to determine whether a marriage existed or not. What
is needed are witnesses. This is why you have a best man and
a maid of honor. They should sign the marriage certificate in your family
Bible, and the wedding day guest book should be kept.
Marriage
was instituted by God; therefore it is a God-given right. According to
Scripture, it is to be governed by the family, and the State only has
jurisdiction in the cases of divorce or crime.
History of Marriage Licenses in
George
Washington was married without a marriage license. So, how did we
come to this place in
Historically,
all the states in
Blacks
Law Dictionary points to this historical fact when it defines "marriage
license" as, "A license or permission granted by public authority
to persons who intend to intermarry." "Intermarry" is
defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as, "Miscegenation; mixed or
interracial marriages."
Give
the State an inch and they will take a 100 miles (or
as one elderly woman once said to me "10,000 miles.") Not long after
these licenses were issued, some states began requiring all people who
marry to obtain a marriage license. In 1923, the Federal Government established
the Uniform Marriage and Marriage License Act (they later established the
Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act). By 1929, every state in the
What Should We Do?
Christian
couples should not be marrying with State marriage licenses, nor should
ministers be marrying people with State marriage licenses. Some have said to
me, "If someone is married without a marriage license, then they aren’t
really married." Given the fact that states may soon legalize same-sex
marriages, we need to ask ourselves, "If a man and a man marry with
a State marriage license, and a man and woman marry without a State
marriage license - who’s really married? Is
it the two men with a marriage license, or the man and woman without
a marriage license? In reality, this contention that people are not really
married unless they obtain a marriage license simply reveals how Statist we are
in our thinking. We need to think biblically. (As for homosexuals
marrying, outlaw sodomy as God's law demands, and there will be no threat of
sodomites marrying.)
You
should not have to obtain a license from the State to marry someone anymore
than you should have to obtain a license from the State to be a parent, which
some in academic and legislative circles are currently pushing to be made law.
When
I marry a couple, I always buy them a Family Bible which contains birth and
death records, and a marriage certificate. We record the marriage in the Family
Bible. What’s recorded in a Family Bible will stand up as legal evidence in any
court of law in
(Pastor
Trewhella has been marrying couples without marriage licenses for ten years.
Many other pastors also refuse to marry couples with State marriage licenses.)
This
pamphlet is not comprehensive in scope. Rather, the purpose of this
pamphlet is to make you think and give you a starting point to do further study
of your own. If you would like an audio sermon regarding this matter, just
send a gift of at least five dollars in cash to: Mercy Seat Christian Church
10240 W. National Ave. PMB #129 Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53227.
SOURCE:
http://www.mercyseat.net/BROCHURES/marriagelicense.htm
Again, consider this disturbing quote from the Ohio
Bar Association defining Ohio’s Marriage Laws…
“When you repeat your marriage
vows, you enter into a legal contract. There are three parties to that legal
contract: 1) you; 2) your spouse; and 3) the state of
SOURCE:
http://www.ohiobar.org/pub/lawfacts/index.asp?articleid=14
The painting to the right is of John the Baptist's head, which Herod ordered removed. There are some things in life worse than death, and being dragged through divorce court by a rebellious and angry wife is one of them.
Please read the following article because it hits-the-nail-on-the-head. Please understand that the author is NOT advocating avoiding marriage; rather, he is simply warning the reader about the dangers of getting a marriage license.
Stay single, young man!
By
Vox Day
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com |
Marriage,
as conceived by God, is a good and fruitful thing.
Marriage, as conceived by the state, is an evil man-trap designed to deprive
men of their property and their children.
For
as the Ohio State Bar Association helpfully explains, the marriage
license is:
... a
legal contract. There are three parties to that contract. 1.You;
2. Your husband or wife, as the case may be; and 3.
the State of
This
contract grants the third party jurisdiction over all the property owned by the
first two, as well as anything produced by the other parties, including
children. And it is this marriage license which gives the state legal power to
dictate who gets what in the case of a divorce.
The
explosion of divorce in the latter half of the 20th century and the commonplace
abuse of men in the family "courts" (which
are actually fraudulent executive-branch entities that operate in total
violation of the constitutional law's separation of powers) is
bad enough. But since feminists have discovered how the power of government can
be used to forcibly transform civil society to their liking, they have been
emboldened to make even more creative use of the state's power over marriage.
In
As
the law's sponsor, Margarita Uria, helpfully explains:
The idea of equality within marriage always stumbles over the
problem of work in the house and caring for dependent people. This will be a
good way of reminding people what their duties are. It is something feminists
have been wanting for a long time.
No
doubt they have. Because, according to Marian Salzman, described by the U.K.
Observer as a "trend-spotter extraordinaire," women are
"rejecting equality in the workplace and prefer the idea of becoming
full-time housewives – but not ones who actually do housework ... women are
happy to abandon the workplace, but not if it means spending all day at home
cooking, cleaning and looking after children. Instead, they want to play the
"role" of housewife with a little help from, for instance, a nanny,
and someone who does the ironing."
Her
warning should sober even the most infatuated man. "Women think: 'What's
mine is mine, and what's his is mine.'"
Since
the U.S. Supreme Court now sees fit to take international law into account when
deciding what is and is not constitutional, it can only be a matter of time
before a woman's right to force her husband to do the ironing or breast-feed
the baby is discovered in an emanation or a penumbra. After all, someone has to
do the housework when mommy is busy sitting on a corporate board, which she'll
be doing as soon as the Norwegian concept of sex-based affirmative action for
company directors crosses the
Young
men are already responding to the increasingly odious burden of marriage by
delaying it or avoiding it altogether, but for the most part, they are doing so
without conscious design. It is time for men to become aware that as the more
economically productive class, they are the natural prey of the government and
its family-control machinery. The courts have already demonstrated that a man –
any man – will do for their purposes when child support is required, even if that man can be proved to have no
relationship to the child.
For
non-Christian men, the answer is easy: Avoid marriage at all costs. Marriage
only weakens your legal and emotional positions vis-a-vis a woman, and since
American women will freely provide companionship, sex and children upon
request, to marry is to give up a great deal for what is literally less than
nothing.
A
Christian man, on other hand, cannot freely engage in
non-committal sexual relationships, and so must marry. He can improve his odds,
however, by marrying a Christian woman who is not on
the career track. This will significantly increase the chances that he will not
find himself at the legal mercy of a sociopath obsessed with momentary
happiness ?ber alles, but blessed by a
traditional wife committed to building a family and a life together with him
instead.
But
is it possible for a Christian couple to avoid the state's machinery of control
and still marry before God? Yes, according to pastor Matt Trewhella.
"What's recorded in a family Bible will stand up as legal evidence in any
court of law in
SOURCE: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43732
