Religious scholars back interfaith marriage
Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Planned reform in the civil registry
system, particularly interfaith marriages, is gaining more ground with
religious scholars throwing their weight
behind it.
Ulil Abshar Abdalla, researcher and executive
of the country's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama
(NU) said that the function of the civil
registry office should be strictly limited to registering marriages and
other activities related to citizenship.
"There should be a distinction between
a marriage blessed by a particular religion and civil registration of a
marriage. It should not be mixed as
it is now," Ulil told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
Mudji Sutrisno, a catholic priest and Budiman of the Indonesian Buddhist Society (MBI) shared Ulil's view.
"It is annoying when the civil registry
office insists that you have the same faith as your spouse before it
registers your marriage. If couples
of different religions want to get married, the civil registry office should
register their marriage," Budiman said.
A consortium of representatives from
government, non-governmental organization and Unicef recently
revealed their plan to formulate a civil
registry bill that would allow the civil registry office to register and
legalize interfaith marriages while
maintaining their respective religions.
Under the 1974 Marriage Law, a marriage
is legal only when it is conducted according to one's faith or
religion. In practice, however, the
civil registry office only recognizes marriages between people of the same
faith.
It also refuses to register nondenominational
marriages unless the couple chooses to convert to one of the
religions recognized by the state: Islam,
Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism and Hinduism.
Such a ruling prompts couples from different
religions -- especially Muslims wanting to marry non-Muslims --
to get married outside the country where
interfaith marriages are recognized.
Currently around 5,000 Indonesian couples
are on a waiting list in Singapore to have their marriage
registered there.
Worse still, according to Budiman, the
regulation has promoted couples of different religions to pretend to
have converted to his or her spouse's
religion just to have their marriage registered. They would continue to
practice their own religion once their
marriage had been registered.
Although the bill is not expected for
another year, the Consortium for Civil Registry have started to
disseminate its ideas.
"Interfaith marriage is becoming a growing
problem as people are more and more mobile. Human
relationships are no longer based on
religion. So, there should be a solution to this problem," Ulil, who is
also a member of the Indonesian Conference
on Religion and Peace (ICRP), said.
Ulil suggested that it would be better
that the Religious Affairs office (KUA), registered Muslim marriages.
While for Muslims who want to marry
non-Muslims, they could get married in the civil registry office.
Mudji agreed with Ulil. "I think it is
good for our civil law. This is a solution to the deadlock in interfaith
marriage and it respects religious differences
because each person can maintain his or her religion."
According to Budiman, the proposed reform
would ease pressure on couples of different faiths if they wanted
to register their marriage at the registry
office.
"They will feel free to come to the civil
registry office. They wouldn't have to feel awkward about their
religious background," Budiman remarked.