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[Frumple]

I'll note again that no one would be forcing someone to perform a wedding. They would be required to officiate a marriage to all applicable people to maintain their license, but no more or less than that. A licensed Baha'i priest-equivalent should not have to perform a Baha'i ceremony for any couple, but so long as they are an official of the state (in the country/governmental sense, not US states), they should be required to officiate as per the state's mandate. There's no point I'd recommend forcing people to perform religious ceremonies they do not wish to, but if you're going to become a licensed affiliate of the legal administration, you should not be a allowed to discriminate beyond what the law does.

Marriage is both a religious and a legal institution. People can do whatever they please with the former (barring illegality, anyway), but having special sanction for the latter should come with appropriate responsibilities, y'know? Don't like it, don't get licensed, perform your ceremonies, and send your people to a judge afterwards. I'm relatively sure working through some paperwork and getting a certificate brought in is not against Baha'i precepts. I'd hope their religious union involves a bit more than that, anyway.

[Descan]

Basically if you want to perform legally binding marriages, you need to follow the legal procedure and rules. Not entirely what's so controversial about that.

[Zangi]

So... why not provide a legit alternative to that is a bit more willing and accommodating.  You can hope that they would get the hint and not press the issue if they have an acceptable alternative to officiate.
Of course, this might not be a viable option if the hate-on is doing all the thinking and reasoning.

[smjjames]

The Vatican even called it a "defeat for humanity".


I, for one, welcome our FAAAABULOUS overlords.





Should also be noted that this was a high-ranking cardinal who said that, not Pope Francis.

Heh, saw that in the CNN news ticker. No surprise....

This thursday mr Putin Prison issued a new law by decree: Henceforth, any information regarding Russian soldiers killed in peace-time, will henceforth fall under the category 'state secret'.
Spreading information about Russian soldiers dying in peacetime is as of now, treason, and will get you arrested.

With this law he hopes to stop the increasing chatter on social media from families who loved their lost ones, as well as criminalizing the publication and spread of the report made by the recently assasinated opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, which claimed that over 220 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine since the start of the conflict there.
The Russian organisation 'soldier's mothers' has reported that families of fallen soldiers often will not dare to speak about it already, with or without the law, pressured into silence by army command.

Seriously? Also, way to not make him look suspicious in the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, but unfortunately, they already pinned the blame on the Chechens somehow.

I wonder if that law would apply to those who died in a car crash or something, or even just old age (I guess retired soldiers don't count?). He's definetly going all Soviet, which isn't a surprise, former KGB that he is.

[Bohandas]

Just heard about that Orthodox Jewish London area where some major rabbi is trying to ban women driving their kids home from school in cars on the grounds that its humiliating or something. I know loads of Jews, each with their own variation on the tenets of Judaism, but this is bullshit disguising sexiism...

It's an Abrahamic religion, what the hell did you expect?

[Bohandas]

Ok, but let's explore that issue a bit deeper. Baha'i traditions require the consent of all living parents of the two potential spouses (and it should be noted that the Baha'i authorities have been generally against same-sex marriage). What if two same-sex partners want a Baha'i wedding, but their parents refuse to give consent? Now you're forcing the Baha'i temple to violate TWO of their precepts, regardless of how outdated those precepts are.

As I said, I'd actually take the "invisible hand of the market" argument here, surprisingly. If denominations don't want to do same-sex marriages, that's their right. And then they'll see their congregations steadily dwindle. Eventually, that refusal may be one of the "quaint" hallmarks of their particular sect, like the Amish eschewing technology.

I agree. The ceremony is none of the government's business.

EDIT:
And government paperwork largely isn't the church's, they shouldn't be roped into more of it on a pointless technicality.

[mainiac]

Well the church used to be state employees in England.

Actually come to think of it, did that ever change?

[martinuzz]

Today Putin presented a list of people from the EU, who will no longer be allowed to enter Russia.
Amongst those are 3 members of our Dutch parliament. They have expressed their view in public, that they think that flight MH17 was shot down by a BUK rocket that originated from Russia. Apparently that is reason enough for Putin to disallow members of parliament of European nations access to their country. An extra debate with our minister president has been called for by our parliament, to discuss this.

[Sergarr]

Given how many our people were sanctioned in this very same manner for displaying their opinions on Crimea in public, I don't find this piece of news particularly weird.

[smjjames]

Today Putin presented a list of people from the EU, who will no longer be allowed to enter Russia.
Amongst those are 3 members of our Dutch parliament. They have expressed their view in public, that they think that flight MH17 was shot down by a BUK rocket that originated from Russia. Apparently that is reason enough for Putin to disallow members of parliament of European nations access to their country. An extra debate with our minister president has been called for by our parliament, to discuss this.

Why do you need to have an extra debate to discuss that? Why not just shrug it off like we did when Russia did the same to some members of congress?

[Helgoland]

sanctioned in this very same manner for displaying their opinions on Crimea in public

[citation  needed]

[Sergarr]

sanctioned in this very same manner for displaying their opinions on Crimea in public

[citation  needed]

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.2014.226.01.0023.01.ENG

Mr Malofeev is closely linked to Ukrainian separatists in Eastern Ulkraine and Crimea. He is a former employer of Mr Borodai, so-called Prime Minister of the so-called ‘Donetsk People's Republic’ and met with Mr Aksyonov, so-called Prime Minister of the so-called ‘Republic of Crimea’, during the period of the Crimean annexation process. The Ukrainian Government has opened a criminal investigation into his alleged material and financial support to separatists.

In addition, he gave a number of public statements supporting the annexation of Crimea and the incorporation of Ukraine into Russia and notably stated in June 2014 that ‘You can't incorporate the whole of Ukraine into Russia. The East (of Ukraine) maybe’.

Therefore Mr. Malofeev is acting in support of the destabilisation of Eastern Ukraine.

[citation provided]

[martinuzz]

Why do you need to have an extra debate to discuss that? Why not just shrug it off like we did when Russia did the same to some members of congress?

Oh, it will probably be shrugged off. The parliament members in question still call for a debate though, which is their constitutional right.

You do seem to forget however that it is a delicate subject over here, since the vast majority of the dead passengers from MH17 were Dutch, and we have an official parliamentary inquiry commisioned to investigate it. Moreover, the information presented to us (the general public) about the investigations into the crash point more and more to the plane being shot down by seperatists, using a BUK supplied by, and hastily retreated back into Russia.

In that light, it does raise some questions like "what if any of those parliament members would have had to go to Russia if the parliamentary inquiry commission finds that nescessary for the investigation into the crash of MH17? Wouldn't that be obstruction of our investigation into the matter?", for which I'm sure our minister president has some satisfactory-to-the-parliament answers ready, and it will all go away quietly.

Besides that, it's not like some 'friend of the president' businessmen got banned from Russia, it's some democratically elected members of parliament that did. So to keep up the appearance of democracy to the general public, and satisfy their need of feeling informed, there is a call for debate.

EDIT: Our minister president just responded, and said he was "very angry". He called the list "without any legal foundation" and "will file a complaint in CAPITAL LETTERS with the Russian government".

[RedKing]

I'll note again that no one would be forcing someone to perform a wedding. They would be required to officiate a marriage to all applicable people to maintain their license, but no more or less than that. A licensed Baha'i priest-equivalent should not have to perform a Baha'i ceremony for any couple, but so long as they are an official of the state (in the country/governmental sense, not US states), they should be required to officiate as per the state's mandate. There's no point I'd recommend forcing people to perform religious ceremonies they do not wish to, but if you're going to become a licensed affiliate of the legal administration, you should not be a allowed to discriminate beyond what the law does.

Marriage is both a religious and a legal institution. People can do whatever they please with the former (barring illegality, anyway), but having special sanction for the latter should come with appropriate responsibilities, y'know? Don't like it, don't get licensed, perform your ceremonies, and send your people to a judge afterwards. I'm relatively sure working through some paperwork and getting a certificate brought in is not against Baha'i precepts. I'd hope their religious union involves a bit more than that, anyway.

I think you're a bit confused about how marriage works (in the US at least). Clergy are *not* legal officials of the state. You have to go to the local magistrate to get a marriage license, the priest simply notarizes the license. This is why you can get married with just the license and no church wedding, but a church wedding without the official marriage license is not recognized by the state as valid. Religious marriage ceremonies have no legal standing.

The magistrate is the one that shouldn't be able to refuse to issue a license, and I 100% agree there. In fact, here in NC the legislature just tried to pass a bill that would allow magistrates to invoke a "religious freedom" clause to avoid issuing a same-sex marriage certificate. Our Republican governor promptly vetoed that shit yesterday, rightly stating that government employees have a responsibility to carry out their duties equally to ALL citizens under the law.


Now, granted I don't know what the legal relationship between Catholic clergy and the government of Ireland is, but I'm willing to guess that it works pretty similar there.

[Dutchling]

Don't you guys just agree with each other?