congratulations; well done!
A lady in France just married her dead fiance, and we're still working on marrying live people.
Well...sex with an ex-girlfriend of mine could have qualified for sex with a dead person....no, wait, a dead person might have moved more!
Brand X wrote:A lady in France just married her dead fiance, and we're still working on marrying live people.
French law allows marriage between a living person and a dead person to take place, subject to formalities showing the couple had planned to marry. (The dead husband was a policeman, who was killed by a drunken driver shortly before the planned marriage.)
Such laws existed in several Euroean countries during WWI and WWII.
Walter, are you aware the LDS church in its early years (no idea if they still do this) frequently encouraged members to marry their ancestors, in order to allow them entry into heavan?
Wouldn't like that :wink:
I was listening to NPR yesterday and the congresswoman who is sponsoring the amendment was on. She was talking about the exact language of the measure and I thought it odd.
"Marriage shall be defined as a union between a man and a woman..."
I got to thinking and wondering what definition they are going to use to define what a man and what a woman is...
How do transgendered people fit in? Is the requirement for male going to be a penis? Or is it going to be a y chromosome? If a man gets a sex change operation, then wants to marry a mna, will he/she be able to?
I wonder if anyone in congress thinks of these things...
McGentrix wrote:I was listening to NPR yesterday and the congresswoman who is sponsoring the amendment was on. She was talking about the exact language of the measure and I thought it odd.
"Marriage shall be defined as a union between a man and a woman..."
I got to thinking and wondering what definition they are going to use to define what a man and what a woman is...
How do transgendered people fit in? Is the requirement for male going to be a penis? Or is it going to be a y chromosome? If a man gets a sex change operation, then wants to marry a mna, will he/she be able to?
I wonder if anyone in congress thinks of these things...
I agree. These are very good points! It must be getting late here.
McG
That's very astute. I hadn't even thought of that corner of things.
I too listened to a bit of the Barr/Franks bit which Lola mentions. Barr's claim - permitting gays to marry will "dilute" the institution is a commonplace claim from the Christian Right (and from this administration).
As Lola points out, this argument is rationally incoherent. What does 'dilute' (or 'weaken', etc) mean in this context? How could such ever be measured? And therefore, how could we know that the opposite claim (it will strengthen marriage) isn't more accurate?
Claims such as Barr's are really quite interesting. They pretend to rationality, and to objective truth, but they are actually only expressions of preference or of emotion, like "Ow!".
One might, to make a comparable claim, say that the electrification of the guitar 'diluted' musical expression.
On another thread, georgeob (who is staying away from this discussion, the little chicken) suggested that many extant cultural forces were already undermining the traditional notions and practices of marriage, and thus we ought to be firm and fight against new assaults to the institution. But there are a large number of very questionable assumptions laying beneath that notion.
And, of course, on the other side of the equation is the limiting of individual rights and the proscription of private moral behavior between consenting adults - two very deep contradictions to the principles of liberty and personal choice free from government interference.
Ole Liver Lips probably hasn't had sex since "Marty" won the Oscar -- characterizing this as an assault on the institution of marriage is laughable. Wonder what those unmarried heterosexuals (who are nearing the majority) are doing in the bedroom? You don't suppose it's against "Christian" beliefs (beliefs being what one wants to be true, not what actually is true). I have trouble mustering up any sympathy for their bane -- how many married are actually happily married? I'm afraid my parents mostly endured each other for all those years. Is one truly lonely or doesn't have a life if they are not married? I don't think so. Not having been unshackled from the co-dependency, they wouldn't know how to handle the freedom.
(I'm likely writing this while Laura is again correcting George's English, to no avail).
LW
These arguments are derisable. Who'da thunk such medieval idiocies could gain such currency? The same for 'intelligent design'.
McGentrix wrote:I was listening to NPR yesterday and the congresswoman who is sponsoring the amendment was on. She was talking about the exact language of the measure and I thought it odd.
"Marriage shall be defined as a union between a man and a woman..."
I got to thinking and wondering what definition they are going to use to define what a man and what a woman is...
How do transgendered people fit in? Is the requirement for male going to be a penis? Or is it going to be a y chromosome? If a man gets a sex change operation, then wants to marry a mna, will he/she be able to?
I wonder if anyone in congress thinks of these things...
And what category in hell would Michael Jackson fit in???
blatham wrote:Quote:The reason why people wish to protect the sanctity of marriage is because of its foundings. It was founded as a religious ceremony.
No, it wasn't. For goodness sakes, if you are going to make a claim that something is true, don't you think you have some responsibility to make sure you aren't just parroting some falsehood you were told by someone else too lazy to do a bit of study. I'm afraid the rest of your post is of the same nature.
http://marriage.about.com/cs/generalhistory/a/marriagehistory.htm
Before you go chiding people for their silly beliefs there bernie you might want to read what you reference as your proof. Your own reference there states that marriage came out of Hebrew Law - Hebrew as in religious law - not secular.
fishin
I passed along that particular link to a general and simple site because it was fairly evident our friend wasn't terribly educated on the subject he addressed, though he assumed he was, having gobbled up enough authority for twenty men.
But it may have been the wrong link. I could have linked to sites on the history of marriage in Japan (big lack of priestly influence there), or to marriage in micronesia (hardly a cross to be found anywhere).
Can you point me to any current circumstances in which a marriage is not a religious ceremony?
Marriage by a judge or captain of a ship is not a religious ceremony.
Also, I'm not sure all those wedding chapels in Las Vegas are religious.
Quote:Can you point me to any current circumstances in which a marriage is not a religious ceremony?
My parents were married by a justice of the peace under the open sky (I was there). My father, in turn, became licensed to perform marriages and did the weddings of two of my cousins and of my sister (none to each other, mind you). None of these ceremonies was religious in the least.
