Posts by Megan Wegan
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Tess Rooney,
Tess, you can't have it both ways. It can't be:
Marriage is traditionally how we build family and the family is the base cell of society.
and
Our society is forming families freely with many people coming together for a while and then breaking up again, some marrying and some not.
Either everyone gets to _choose_ how to build their family, or no one does. And you and the church can (arrogantly) believe its version of marriage is more worthy, more holy, more important that everyone else's, but it really just isn't. It's just more important to the people involved. And I'm pretty sure the civil union I officiated earlier this year was more important to the people involved in that.
There are still legal reasons why we need marriage - property rights, childcare arrangements, welfare, immigration - and while a utopian world would be one where everyone could just have the relationships they want without having to name them, we don't live in that world yet.
Were it me, I'd want to form a union in a place, with people around, where love is celebrated for everyone, not a select few, where people aren't called deviants because of the consenting adults they love, where my choices and my life and my happiness were celebrated, not called sin. But then, that's just me. And my choices are no more important than yours. And vice versa. (Incidentally, I love the tagline of the Protect Families website: You. Your loved ones. That's a family)
Again, I come back to the point that the legal requirements for a wedding ceremony are really very simple. There's _one_ line that needs to be in it. You can have your sacrament all your like, but that's your belief system, and it's not up to the rest of us, nor the state, to accommodate that.
-
Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Tess Rooney,
The church is sanctioned by the state to officiate a marriage ceremony. The rites the church use to do that are not.
-
Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
It's also worth remembering that a couple doesn't just turn up to a celebrant with a marriage license. The license has the celebrant's name on it. This can be changed, though, if for example the nominated officiant is ill.
Before the couple fills out the application, there's meetings and discussions and figuring out if couple and celebrant is "compatible". So, no one can come to me and say "I demand you marry me, you're on the list and you have to".
-
Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Danielle,
"I don't mind gay people, I just don't want to see them pashing on the street." (Or in my church.)
You want to know who the hateful people are? The official catholic position*:
Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity.
* I know many wonderful people of catholic (and other) faiths. But that document is hideous.
-
Field Theory: Time will tell, in reply to Greg Sands,
Yeah. They don't have a ticker or something ready to run?
-
Has Sky said anything about losing the feed during the equestrian last night, during the rides of the final, crucial, two combinations and just breezily going to ads?
-
Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Angus Robertson,
By Emma and Idiot/Savant answering to say that yes it does and that they could be legally forced to.
So, you are just going to breeze past Emma saying this?
That’s the civil function, though, right? From a religious point of view, marriage is a sacrament, and the state can no more dictate whom they administer that it to than they can Last Rites.
-
Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Obviously no-one wants to be married by someone who’d rather not, but there may well be cases where there is only one celebrant available. Common-law marriage is an option there I guess, but.
The DIA makes pretty sure there are the "right" amount of both organisational and independent celebrants around the country, though. Interestingly, one of the reasons that it's so hard to become a civil union celebrant is that there hasn't been nearly as many civil unions as they forecast when the legislation came in.
Basically, the only think I know is that when I am handed a marriage licence form, it says that it "authorises but does not require" me to marry the couple.
-
Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Angus Robertson,
Indeed. So what is the problem?
I don't believe anyone has suggested forcing a church to solemnise a marriage, Angus. The question people have been asking is if a church _does_ refuse to do so, on grounds that they don't approve, could that conceivably be a breach of human rights legislation?
The "problem" is that while we don't actually believe in our rights to be "hateful fuckwits", the church DOES. They are asking MPs to deny a group of people the right to marry, based on their beliefs.
-
Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
(But would, say, a refusal to marry an Japanese couple ’cause of racial prejudice be allowed? Haven’t the foggiest, don’t know enough.)
My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that I, as a celebrant, can refuse to marry anyone. For example, I've said I won't be celebranting themed weddings. (I only dress in medieval costume for specific purposes.*) And certainly, it would be hard to prove that if I say "sorry, I am busy that day", I was doing it for a more nefarious reason.
And as has been said upthread, seriously, why would you want someone who doesn't like you or your lifestyle, to marry you?
And yes, as has been said, the church does not grant marriage licenses. The Department of Internal Affairs does. The marriage has to be solemnised by a celebrant, either an independent one, or an organisational one. Churches - and some other organisations - can apply to have any minister or member approved as a celebrant. For independent celebrants, it's rather more a rigmarole. The marriage ceremony dictated by any particular church is significantly different to the actual legal requirements.
* And I was totally joking, for the record.