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.