I have been brooding about this since yesterday. The Anglicans controlled marriage in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina in ways that hurt many of my ancestors. (I am not sure if any in PA or DE or MD were similarly hurt.) Several of my Quaker ancestors were taxed to support the Anglican Church and were fined for fornication because they were not married in the Anglican Church. Many of my Presbyterian ancestors were also taxed to support the Anglican Church and forced to find ways to have marriages performed outside that church. One of the grievances that the Scotch-Irish had against the English was that the Anglican Church controlled marriage. The reason one of my ancestors voted in the VA Burgess for freedom of religion a few months after the Declaration of Independence was not the high honorable reason of really having freedom of religion for everyone, it was to stop having to pay taxes to support the Anglican Church in Virginia.
Many of the Patriots had a religious reason for fighting England--to get the Anglicans out of controlling marriage.
Now, getting rid of Anglican control solved things? Oh, no, states could still control marriage. White guy and black girl want to get married? (Don't even think of black guy and white girl!) NOT IN MY VIRGINIA! Well, Loving v. Virginia settled that in 1967. What a horror! We can't control inter-racial marriages by law anymore! Well, let's control what we can . . . . In Texas, we can control some sexual acts in the privacy of people's homes into the 21st century, can't we!
Now, look at the governors of states and look at the clerks in city offices in the South. Do they never learn?
All they want to do is to
No comments:
Post a Comment