I don't have any real numbers to back this up, but I was thinking about the total numbers of people that get legal marriages and those that get religious marriages.

The interesting thing is, from what I can tell, virtually everyone getting a religious marriage gets their marriage license before they have their religious ceremony. So, that would mean that virtually all people in religious marriages are also in legal marriages.

Then there is everyone like the people in my family that are only legal and not religious.

This means that virtually everyone getting married is getting a legal marriage while only the religious are adding on the religious component.

The one institution that covers virtually everyone's marriages is the legal and not the religious institution.

The dominate form of marriage is legal, not religious.

As I said, I don't have real numbers and I may be underestimating the number of people getting religious marriages without getting a license first.

Gee -- I really don't know.

I'll need to consult the wise counsel of Warren Jeffs before I can say.

UD

MJ Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> n/t

Checked in with the Prophet -- gee, it;s hard to hear on
those prison phone connections.

I hope I got this down correctly:

"Hearken and hear, oh ye people, unto the voice of Adam,
yeah, even Michael the Ancient of Days, your God: -- Wherefore,
I have bleesed him, even my servant Warren, with the power
of the everlasting and holy priesthood. And lo! There is no
other power on the earth, save it be of Satan that old
deceiver, who can lay claim to the authority to marry and
unmarry.

"The abominations of the gentiles shall not touch thee;
neither shall thou embrace the false institutions of evil
in these, the latter days. Wherefore shun and lay inflictions
upon those unrighteous ones who claim the power to marry
and unmarry, apart from the authority I have given unto my
servant Warren. Yea, henceforth and forver, amen and amen!"

hmmm....

Looks like the living prophet has spoken, and the so-called
"marriages" of the gentiles and apostates are _virtually_ all
an abomination unto the keeper of the keys of the celestial kingdom.

UD

Wherever it occurs, in front of a judge, shaman, or priest, the act of "getting married" incurs legal standing in several areas, child care, taxation status, inheritance, etc.

Maybe this is OT but I think this should be made uniform, a marriage should result solely from a legal instrument issued by the federal government to the parties involved (two men, two women, an man and woman...all of legal age).

If a couple desires a religious ceremony it should be superfulous, i.e., it has no legal significance.

Just my opinion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2012 03:47PM by elcid.

CONTRACT and is handled by the courts - usually at a state or county level. But I agree it should be uniform throughout the country.

FYI, at least when I got married last year, you go fill out a bunch of paperwork before you get married and get the form for the license, but it is not official until the officiating, bride, groom, and two witnesses sign it. even then you can't use it for any official government business (like changing your name, filing joint taxes, etc) until you mail it in and get a certified copy back. So the religious part happens FIRST, not after.

That is supposed to say officiant....

"solumnize" it yourself.
Colorado is a great place to get married because it costs only $10 for the license, no waiting period, no sexist blood tests, and whatever name you put on the license is your name.
We chose to hire an officiant and have a ceremony a few days later, but there are ways to do it without the officiant.

Poof, your point disappears. The person can choose between a secular or a religious ceremony, but in both cases, if they are getting a marriage license they are getting a legal marriage. Those adding the religious ceremony could have done so WITHOUT the license, but choose not to because the legal aspect is a big part of what they want.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2012 04:07PM by MJ.

The legality of any US marriage is sanctioned by the state.

Any ceremony, church or otherwise, is merely pomp and circumstance.

Timothy

It just takes a little more paperwork and some witnesses.
But it depends on how backward your state is.

We should just get rid of the religious part and the LEGAL union should ONLY be done as a contract. then you are free to have any kind of ceremony/celebration you please.

How is that not true? I was simply stating what happened when I got married. I presume that anyone else who has a separate wedding goes through this process. You can, as you stated, get it all done in one shot. But there is nothing incorrect in my post.

The statement of fact you made as a conclusion (and seems to apply your experience to marriage as a whole): "So the religious part happens FIRST" is not true. Often the religious part never happens at all.

or even religious FIRST. Because everything that has to occur is a legal/government thing. The officiant (authorized by the government) signs the marriage license that you FIRST got from the government, then you must mail it in to the government, where the government records it and stamps it and sends it back to you. The religious part is completely irrelevant, actually, because the officiant doesn't even have to be a religious one.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2012 04:05PM by MJ.

separate the two. Legally, if you want your "contract" to be enforced by the government, you would get a "Civil Union" type of thing. EVERYONE should be able to get this, without discrimination!
Then, religious organizations could have their own ceremonies, their own rules, no government interference, but those ceremonies would have no legal standing whatsoever.
As you have mentioned, it's ALMOST what we have now, since everyone has to get a marriage license from the government first anyway.

... that's the way it is now.

My objection is with religion's claim that it somehow owns the concept and title of "marriage."

Are we to seperately define Parking as Straight Parking and Gay Parking?

Just make it legal for everyone regardless of race, color creed, gender or sexual orientation and everything will be fine.

Don't need to re-invent the wheel or re-define the language. That would be backwards as well as a waste of time and paper.

Timothy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2012 04:34PM by Timothy.

government still gets to regulate who can get married -- and the reason for this is that RELIGION is involved.
The government should not be involved in the definition of "marriage" at all, and should not be authorizing ANYONE to perform legal MARRIAGES.
I'm for getting rid of the concept of legal marriage completely. Everything LEGAL would be done in the form of contracts.

Have you ever considered the number of contractual agreements that are covered under the "marriage" blanket?

To get a clue go into a business partnership. You can sign endless contracts, but you'll always miss something.

You're wanting a complete overhaul of the system just to satisfy religion.

Just incorporate same-sex marriage into the legal definition. Problem solved.

Timothy

The marriage laws throughout the country are relics of a time when women and children were considered the property of their husbands. Sexist marriage laws abound, particularly in states where there is no state Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution.
"Marriage" in this country needs a major overhaul, and now is as good a time as any.
Another reason to change our definitions and one-size-fits-all approach to marriage: The main reason many religious people fear the legalization of same-sex marriage is that they think it will result in their churches/ministers being forced to perform/officiate marriages that they do not believe in. If we completely separate the legal contract from religious ceremonies, then we solve the problem. (Except for the people who just want to control others...)

The license is required by the government, it doesn't matter if the ceremony is a religous one or otherwise. I vote legal.

"There's no national data on how many U.S. marriages are performed by clergy vs. a civil authority such as a notary, judge or justice of the peace. But in the 18 states that have tracked data for any significant period of time since 1980:

"• 14 showed a growing or essentially steady rate of civil marriages — more than 40% of marriages in 2001. That's up from about 30% in 1980.

"• Four showed a drop in civil-marriage rates: South Carolina, where a legal change stopped judges from getting paid for weddings (but the state still has one of the highest civil-marriage rates); Utah, with its large, family-centered Mormon population; and tourism havens Hawaii and Tennessee, where visitors flock to be quickly wed by non-denominational ministers."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-10-06-civilmarriage-usat_x.htm

Surprised the Pew Forum has nothing on this...

To really deal with the point I was making we would need to know:

Number of civil marriages (this would include marriages that were religious and non-religious, but sanctioned by law)

Number of religious marriages (this would include marriages that had a religious ceremony regardless of if they were sanctioned by law or not.)

That data does not appear to have been collected into an easily available report at this point in time.

in my post on the subject to adequately make my point.

As far as the state is concerned, marriage is a strictly legal issue. You would probably be told by any member of congress that this is the case. My point was that those laws that are enacted regarding marriage and everything else are doing so from the context of personal beliefs, religious or not.

The way i see it, and I may not be seeing other viewpoints, is the only reason to have a problem with a man loving another man and wanting to marry another man is because God said it is wrong. Taking any religious influence away, does it matter at all?

So I guess my point was that even though it is legally a secular issue, the fact that same sex is even debated comes from the overtones that, in my opinion are nothing but religious.

I think that says what I wanted to a bit better, but probably not.

This thread seemed to be an offshoot of mine, since you posed a question about something you disagreed with.

Didn't mean to interrupt your thread....

What Is the point of marriage at all if it doesn't have a religious component. Nothing magical happens in a ceremony. Why not just get the civil union for tax reasons or whatever.

The California Supreme Court used this point as a cornerstone in their decision to make gay marriages legal in 2008.

That, of course, is where all sorts of conservative religulous institutions get their holy underwear bunched up into a collective wedgie because they consider themselves to be the final arbiters in all things social and cultural. Naturally, many of us beg to differ with them.

People are changing their minds about it, even religious people. Lots of people are supporting gay marriage that didn't the year before. It is just a matter of time. There are religious gay people. Why shouldn't they be allowed to be married under God if they choose to? Time will tell.

We banned gay marriage, civil unions and even domestic partnerships and made the ban part of the state constitution. It was a referendum that passed with 62% of the vote. I don't know if that's the case in every state where gay marriage has been banned, but I suspect that the people who don't want gay marriage, also don't want any other means for gays to have the same rights as people in straight marriages.