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Discordian Weddings

Started by Danjanon, February 07, 2012, 02:04:52 PM

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BadBeast

Quote from: Luna on February 09, 2012, 11:39:14 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 09, 2012, 11:31:28 PM
Quote from: Luna on February 09, 2012, 10:09:19 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 09, 2012, 10:00:06 PM
Quote from: Luna on February 09, 2012, 09:50:40 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 09, 2012, 09:42:03 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 09, 2012, 08:11:51 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 09, 2012, 06:39:57 PM
If you ask me, the whole concept of marriage is "a bit iffy".

Balls.
So what are the advantages?  And who wins them?

If you're thinking "winning" and "advantages," yes, your concept of marriage is, in fact, "iffy."
If there's no advantages or reward in it, then why bother with it? Why should a relationship between two people who love each other need any kind of legal or religious sanction at all?

I've told this story before, I'm sure.

A couple friends of mine lived together for years... never got married.  He had a stroke.  Out of the blue thing, he was reasonably young, nobody expected him to have any health problems younger than I am now, I think.  His girlfriend had to get permission from his family, a family from whom he had been estranged for, literally, DECADES, just to visit.  All decisions about his care were made from halfway across the country, by people he wouldn't even exchange Christmas cards with.

I could give a flying fuck about religious sanction, but legal recognition?  That's important.
Didn't he have any say in who cared for him? If The legal recognition regarding an individual's own wishes is dependent on marriage, then
that's almost like State co-ercion to get wed. And a pretty poor reason to marry.

But, hey, believe what you like.  Say you think the system is fucked...  But don't pretend it doesn't matter.
I wasn't pretending it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter to me.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 09, 2012, 11:51:55 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 09, 2012, 09:42:03 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 09, 2012, 08:11:51 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 09, 2012, 06:39:57 PM
If you ask me, the whole concept of marriage is "a bit iffy".

Balls.
So what are the advantages?  And who wins them?

Well, here's one that's near & dear to me right now:  On Sunday, my wife was utterly incapacitated by an incredible tooth infection that swelled up out of nowhere.  It was so bad, it affected her eyesight.

I was able to authorize medical care for her, because she was in no position to do it for herself.  I was also allowed to stay with her in the hospital.  If I wasn't married to her, she would have had to try to explain her problems when she was in too much pain to think, and I would have had to wait at home, wondering what was going on.
Sorry to hear that, hope she's OK. Our NHS is far from perfect, but emergency (or any other) medical treatment doesn't need any third party authorisation.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 09, 2012, 11:53:57 PM
Also, no matter how you feel about this sort of thing, ceremonies are important to domesticated primates.  They matter.  Some might argue that they shouldn't, but that doesn't change the nature of the beast.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good wedding as much as the next man. But when the ceremony (And the reception) is over, I still get to go home unmarried. Which suits me just fine.
Quote from: Nigel on February 10, 2012, 12:53:23 AM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 09, 2012, 09:42:03 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 09, 2012, 08:11:51 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 09, 2012, 06:39:57 PM
If you ask me, the whole concept of marriage is "a bit iffy".

Balls.
So what are the advantages?  And who wins them?

Legal next of kin.
Over here, you can grant next of kin status to your partner without having to be married.
It would be interesting to see the percentages of couples who live together x couples who are married for the US compared to the UK. I have no idea how they match up, but I'd bet there are far more unmarried couples over here. (Per head of capita)     
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kingyak

Quote from: BadBeast on February 10, 2012, 02:57:15 AM
I have no idea how they match up, but I'd bet there are far more unmarried couples over here. (Per head of capita)   

That probably has more to do with the fact that the UK isn't a Christian Nation like the U.S.

Or so people keep telling me.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."-HST

BadBeast

#47
Quote from: kingyak on February 10, 2012, 03:36:29 AM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 10, 2012, 02:57:15 AM
I have no idea how they match up, but I'd bet there are far more unmarried couples over here. (Per head of capita)   

That probably has more to do with the fact that the UK isn't a Christian Nation like the U.S.

Or so people keep telling me.
The US are the ones who make such a big pretence about the separation of Church and State. (Then elect leaders on the strength of their religious beliefs) Here we make no such pretence. We're far less religious as a Nation than you, but our triumverate of Crown, Church, and Parliament has worked quite well now for centuries.

I realise your post was light hearted, but I don't think anywhere in the World is
"A Christian Nation like the U.S"  :lulz:

ETA; Even the US!
"We need a plane for Bombing, Strafing, Assault and Battery, Interception, Ground Support, and Reconaissance,
NOT JUST A "FAIR WEATHER FIGHTER"!

"I kinda like him. It's like he sees inside my soul" ~ Nigel


Whoever puts their hand on me to govern me, is a usurper, and a tyrant, and I declare them my enemy!

"And when the clouds obscure the moon, and normal service is resumed. It wont. Mean. A. Thing"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpkCJDYxH-4

Nephew Twiddleton

Quote from: BadBeast on February 10, 2012, 03:56:46 AM
Quote from: kingyak on February 10, 2012, 03:36:29 AM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 10, 2012, 02:57:15 AM
I have no idea how they match up, but I'd bet there are far more unmarried couples over here. (Per head of capita)   

That probably has more to do with the fact that the UK isn't a Christian Nation like the U.S.

Or so people keep telling me.
The US are the ones who make such a big pretence about the separation of Church and State. (Then elect leaders on the strength of their religious beliefs) Here we make no such pretence. We're far less religious as a Nation than you, but our triumverate of Crown, Church, and Parliament has worked quite well now for centuries.

I realise your post was light hearted, but I don't think anywhere in the World is
"A Christian Nation like the U.S"  :lulz:

ETA; Even the US!

Granted, it's ridiculous over here how entwined with a nominally secular republic (atheistic, at least, by default) is with Christianity.

I don't know how marriage works in the UK, but in the US, it's not even just about health proxies. There are literally over a thousand rights a spouse has in the US just based on the fact that a marriage took place, a lot of them small and subtle. A marriage, at the heart of it, is a very complex contract that you can still enact with anybody, or even multiple parties, it's just that it would take over a thousand pieces of paper and over a thousand signatures times 2. It's part of the reason why gay marriage is such a big deal, and why gay marriage should be recognized on a federal level. I live in Massachusetts, which is one of the now 7 gay marriage states, and we can only guarantee rights to gay couples with a few hundred rights since the whole of the US doesn't recognize it and withholds those federal rights (some of which are tax related). This also comes down to DOMA, one bit of legislation that is glaringly un-Constitutional. I did a paper on DOMA and its unintended consequences for my US government class.

DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) basically flies in the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution, which states that records enacted in one state is valid in all states of the Union. It's unambiguous. But under the Clinton administration, DOMA, which states that neither the Federal government nor any individual state government is required to recognize legal gay marriage in any individual state that allows it. The paper that I wrote pointed out that some states recognize civil unions without recognizing gay marriage, which allows, say, a gay and lesbian couple to marry in Massachusetts, and then the men and women to have heterosexual marriages in Texas, since the Massachusetts marriages are not recognized. So then, what do we have here? A legal clump of tetragamy!
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We have similar in NL. Since '98 we got the "registered partnership", which grants all the same rights as legal marriage except for a few differences concerning children born or adopted into this partnership, which is very complicated--they do in general have joint parental authority over the child unless there is a third legal parent in which case the other partner is the step-parent and has duties towards the child, but they don't automatically become parent unless the father acknowledges or adopts the child and for partnership between two women it is again different--VERY COMPLICATED but it's basically marriage especially if there are no kids involved.

Since 1998 when registered partnership got introduced, it's been open for same-sex couples right away. But it's also being used by couples with similar opinions as BadBeast that don't really see the need for the actual marriage marriage thing, but still want the legal advantages of partnership.

When in 2001 we opened marriage for same-sex couples (it's explicitly not described as "gay marriage" because it's an amendment to the Dutch law on marriage to state that a marriage can be between two persons of the same OR different sex, not a special or different "kind" of marriage), the only thing that basically changed was the ceremony part and the name part of it. Whether the Church allows it depends on the church in question--but the Churchly wedding part is optional anyway and not many people do it because the legal ceremony is allowed to be held anywhere (you need some official person and he'll declare the place a temporary extension of the Town House), so you can just make that part all nice and memorable without involving any deities.

What also changed in 2001 is that you could easily switch between a marriage and a registered partnership. I suppose this was mostly for those gay couples that had already got a registered partnership but wanted a marriage for real. But they made it so that you could also easily switch back from marriage to registered partnership. And since the latter could be more easily ended, this gave way to a legal construction known as the "flash divorce". But they closed that loophole in 2009.

See I think that might be the trick, even if you don't play, you're still playing some ridiculously complex game :lol:
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Quote from: BadBeast on February 10, 2012, 02:57:15 AM


Over here, you can grant next of kin status to your partner without having to be married.
It would be interesting to see the percentages of couples who live together x couples who are married for the US compared to the UK. I have no idea how they match up, but I'd bet there are far more unmarried couples over here. (Per head of capita)   

The only way to do that here is through marriage or adoption.
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Elder Iptuous

Quote from: Nigel on February 10, 2012, 04:23:27 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 10, 2012, 02:57:15 AM


Over here, you can grant next of kin status to your partner without having to be married.
It would be interesting to see the percentages of couples who live together x couples who are married for the US compared to the UK. I have no idea how they match up, but I'd bet there are far more unmarried couples over here. (Per head of capita)   

The only way to do that here is through marriage or adoption.

i think next of kin comes after marriage partner in precedence of authority here, right? (i.e. marriage partner is a separate and higher state than next of kin)
this is a big problem imo, because the only argument that i have heard against getting govt. completely out of the marriage business is this status issue.  and what if you want to have this status granted for a non-romantic partner?  why can't you have ultimate authority in these cases be given to a close friend?  this would still be an issue even if we abolished the restrictions on who can marry who.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Iptuous on February 10, 2012, 05:06:11 PM
Quote from: Nigel on February 10, 2012, 04:23:27 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on February 10, 2012, 02:57:15 AM


Over here, you can grant next of kin status to your partner without having to be married.
It would be interesting to see the percentages of couples who live together x couples who are married for the US compared to the UK. I have no idea how they match up, but I'd bet there are far more unmarried couples over here. (Per head of capita)   

The only way to do that here is through marriage or adoption.

i think next of kin comes after marriage partner in precedence of authority here, right? (i.e. marriage partner is a separate and higher state than next of kin)
this is a big problem imo, because the only argument that i have heard against getting govt. completely out of the marriage business is this status issue.  and what if you want to have this status granted for a non-romantic partner?  why can't you have ultimate authority in these cases be given to a close friend?  this would still be an issue even if we abolished the restrictions on who can marry who.

Power of attorney can be used instead, but that opens the person using the PoA up to civil action, which isn't the case with a spouse.
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Elder Iptuous

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 10, 2012, 05:43:52 PM
Power of attorney can be used instead, but that opens the person using the PoA up to civil action, which isn't the case with a spouse.
what does this mean?

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Iptuous on February 10, 2012, 05:45:59 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 10, 2012, 05:43:52 PM
Power of attorney can be used instead, but that opens the person using the PoA up to civil action, which isn't the case with a spouse.
what does this mean?

It means that in some states, exercising a power of attorney can be actionable in court, if the decision made turns out to not be in the best interests of the person being represented by the person holding the power of attorney.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Elder Iptuous

oh. ok, so it opens up the person to being sued by the other person...
so, a marriage partner is immune from civil action?

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Iptuous on February 10, 2012, 06:11:55 PM
oh. ok, so it opens up the person to being sued by the other person...
so, a marriage partner is immune from civil action?

When making decisions in place of a spouse?  Yeah.  You can't be sued, for example, if you "pull the plug" on a braindead/etc spouse, if the inlaws don't like it.

NOTE:  This is a state level thing, so I can't speak for all states, here.  Some states are weird.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

navkat

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on February 09, 2012, 09:13:10 PM
Yes, but where are we going to get 40 gallons of personal lubricant?

Hah! I always said if I get married again, I'm giving tiny bottles of Astroglide wrapped in purple chiffon as the wedding favors. I mean, who actually EATS those stale Jordan Almonds, anyway? AMIRITE?

Elder Iptuous

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 10, 2012, 06:14:27 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on February 10, 2012, 06:11:55 PM
oh. ok, so it opens up the person to being sued by the other person...
so, a marriage partner is immune from civil action?

When making decisions in place of a spouse?  Yeah.  You can't be sued, for example, if you "pull the plug" on a braindead/etc spouse, if the inlaws don't like it.

NOTE:  This is a state level thing, so I can't speak for all states, here.  Some states are weird.

ah.  so you weren't just referring to civil action on part of the represented...
well... if you have power of attorney, but can't make decisions on behalf of the person without fear of being sued by a third party, what the hell is the point?
:?

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Iptuous on February 10, 2012, 06:19:44 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 10, 2012, 06:14:27 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on February 10, 2012, 06:11:55 PM
oh. ok, so it opens up the person to being sued by the other person...
so, a marriage partner is immune from civil action?

When making decisions in place of a spouse?  Yeah.  You can't be sued, for example, if you "pull the plug" on a braindead/etc spouse, if the inlaws don't like it.

NOTE:  This is a state level thing, so I can't speak for all states, here.  Some states are weird.

ah.  so you weren't just referring to civil action on part of the represented...
well... if you have power of attorney, but can't make decisions on behalf of the person without fear of being sued by a third party, what the hell is the point?
:?

It legally allows you to act.  It doesn't necessarily protect you from civil action.  It CAN'T, otherwise the represented and others affected would have precisely zero recourse if someone misused the PoA.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.