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Boater[_3_]

wrote:
On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 11:46:51 +0000, IanM wrote:

The state (any state - I'm in the UK) should totally get out of the
marrage business. Marry whoever you like (that your religion will let
you) in a religious ceremony and go to the courthouse to register the
partnership (requirements: two partners, both human, alive, over the age
of consent and not currently partners of anyone else).

And if you aren't religious?

Letting any priest, minister or other religous leader conduct state
business is *WRONG*. I suppose one might allow churches, temples etc.
to contract with the state for a state employee to be present to
register the civil partnership contract.

Perhaps, if we had started that way, but we now have several hundred
years of marriage between the state and religion.

I'd support the "state" getting itself out of the business of determine
who can marry, so long as the "requirements" were as IanM offered.

Those who aren't "religious" can be married by a private contractor
licensed by the state or municipality, such as a justice of the peace
(JP). Those who are religious but who don't fit into the categories
"approved" by the "religious" can also avail themselves of the JP.

My wife and I could have had a religious ceremony but we chose a JP. It
cost $20. After the wedding, we changed back into our "civvies" and went
to a nearby shopping mall for lunch and to buy the remainder of the
stuff we needed for a two week honeymoon to Mexico and Central America
that we opted for instead of blowing the cash on a big time wedding and
party for family and friends.

I don't think much in the way of hypocrisy exceeds that practiced by
many of the overtly religious. If, for example, you read the Sermon on
the Mount and then consider the behavior of the "relgious" far right,
you can only laugh.