For the past few years, the media has been conducting periodic polls of the US population, trying to find out what the general opinion is about gay marriage. One interesting fact to come out of these polls is that people who identify as Catholic are more likely to approve of same-sex marriage becoming legal than those who identify as Protestant. (Particularly evangelical protestants.)

There’s been some speculation that people may identify as Catholic on the poll but actually be ‘lapsed’, which is possible, but I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I think there’s another reason, too.

Basically, as a lot of people have pointed out, our society is currently using the word ‘marriage’ to mean two different things. The first, the one the government has control over, is the legal contract between two people that bestows all sorts of convenient rights and benefits on them with just a single piece of paper. The second, the one the government has no control over, is the spiritual melding of two souls into one life as mandated by god or buddha or allah or whoever it is you follow. The problem stems from a large number of people having these ideas confused as being the same thing and thinking that what affects one will affect the other.

But why is that? It is true that people with liberal social beliefs tend to see this break very clearly. But it seems indicated by the polls that people who identify themselves as Catholic — typically thought of as a socially conservative group — are able to see this break as well.

One thing I was surprised to learn during this time of debate is that most Protestant sects only have two sacraments: baptism and communion. Having been raised as a Catholic, this was a shock to me, since that church has seven: baptism, communion, reconciliation, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, anointing of the sick. And this is where I think the difference comes in. The Catholic church has a lot of rules and regulations surrounding who can and cannot receive the sacrament of marriage in the Church. They have their own separate system for determining whether a marriage is valid or not. With all of this ceremony surrounding the sacrament — and the official recognition that it -is- a sacrament — the Catholic marriage ceremony feels complete in and of itself. And, in fact, the church views it that way as well. A legal separation or divorce does not render you unmarried in the eyes of the church and you are not free to marry again within it unless your spouse dies or you receive an annullment. (This system, of course, invites abuses of its own. But that is neither here nor there.)

So I can see why Catholics might feel as if permitting same-sex legal recognition would really not affect them at all. And if you didn’t have all of this church supported separation? Maybe that’s where all the paranoia is coming from — lacking any clear central authority other than the government, they can’t see the difference between their church ceremony and the legal contract. They’ve become too intertwined because the religion itself doesn’t offer enough native support.