Pastafarian Wedding

[daftbeaker]

We legalised and equalised same-sex marriage, but in the usual political fudge we gave an exemption to religions who disapprove of homosexuality. They do not have to treat same-sex couples the same as mixed-sex, and can refuse to marry them.

In this country it is against the law for an organisation to discriminate on the basis of sexuality or sexual identity. Unless you are a religion, it appears.

Seeing as Pastafarianism is an egalitarian religion, which treats men, women, straights, gays, lesbians, trans, whatever as equal, I would like to ask for an exemption from the religious exemption. I want us to be obliged to treat same-sex couples the same as mixed-sex couples.

I don't want Pastafarianism to be associated with bigoted and homophobic religions.

No comprende...?

A shorter version:
Marriage in the UK is legally determined by a marriage certificate.
All civil courts/registry offices are obliged to marry people, no matter if their genitalia match or not.
All churches are expected to marry members of their congregation. Certain religious groups object to this and insist on their right to be bigots (to the extent that the catholic church in the UK threatened to shut down childrens' homes rather than be forced to let gay couples adopt).
Roy is suggesting the church of the FSM be exempt from the exemption and we should be made to follow the law of the land as it applies to all secular people.

Personally I can't see a religion getting anywhere if we don't start making arbitrary restrictions and hate figures. I nominate stringy cheese as unclean and people that stand in front of train doors as infidels.

[Qwertyuiopasd]

All churches are expected to marry members of their congregation. Certain religious groups object to this and insist on their right to be bigots.

Expected, but not required? Could they deny performing the marriage for a straight couple, for whatever reason (that is, not for no reason)?

I agree that an exemption is stupid, but I also feel like it would be redundant. Though I'm sure there's some piece of U.K. legality I don't grasp or am not aware of. My question is I guess of practicality: If same sex marriage is as legal as opposite sex marriage (including in terms of weddings/religious marriage)... why would a couple want to be married by a church that didn't want to marry them? Like, when would that come up? If it doesn't, then it seems the exemption is sort of legally superfluous.

[daftbeaker]

All churches are expected to marry members of their congregation. Certain religious groups object to this and insist on their right to be bigots.

Expected, but not required? Could they deny performing the marriage for a straight couple, for whatever reason (that is, not for no reason)?

Yes. (As far as I remember) if a church can show that one or both of the people are not members of their faith then they have no obligation to marry them. If I remember rightly, they don't even have to marry members of their congregation if they choose not to (this is from memory and from quite a few years ago).

I agree that an exemption is stupid, but I also feel like it would be redundant. Though I'm sure there's some piece of U.K. legality I don't grasp or am not aware of. My question is I guess of practicality: If same sex marriage is as legal as opposite sex marriage (including in terms of weddings/religious marriage)... why would a couple want to be married by a church that didn't want to marry them? Like, when would that come up? If it doesn't, then it seems the exemption is sort of legally superfluous.

It's the whole point of equality under the law. If someone is allowed to perform marriage ceremonies, then they perform marriage ceremonies. You wouldn't accept going into a government building and being told 'sorry, we can't renew your passport because you're straight, you'll have to go to the other building at the other end of the city', why should you accept the same thing with a marriage certificate?

The obvious solution is to remove the ability of churches to marry people. Everyone gets married by a civil registrar and if they choose to have a church service as well then that's their choice.

[daftbeaker]

First thing: the law on equal marriage currently relates to Scotland, not the UK. England and Wales are a bit behind in that, but they are getting there. Northern Ireland is still in the dark ages.

The Equality Act 2010 is UK-wide, it says that people must be treated equally regardless of their sexuality. Now we are re-defining other laws to make that work in practice. Registration of Marriage is a local authority responsibility, therefore devolved to Scotland, Scots law, Scottish legislation. With me so far?

No. But then I never follow precisely what differences in legal wording there are north of Gretna.

[Qwertyuiopasd]

You wouldn't accept going into a government building and being told 'sorry, we can't renew your passport because you're straight, you'll have to go to the other building at the other end of the city', why should you accept the same thing with a marriage certificate?

Well no, but that's because the government is there for everyone, individual religious congregations aren't, necessarily. I would expect if going to the government for a marriage certificate/license, they would have to do it for me. But if I were gay, I can't imagine trying to go to a church that would not want to marry me to try to get married. Or even being a member of the congregation in the first place.

Okay, so I see how this is tied to the Equality Act... So who]/i] is required to treat people equally, regardless of their sexuality? Seems foreign to me that this kind of equality treatment would extend to church's policies of marriage, but that's probably because it is foreign.

Now, in the secular world of legislation I don't think the definition of marriage should be one man and one woman, but I could see the argument in which the marriage, as a religious practice, is defined as the church defines it, and it's not so much treating gay couples differently (as long as they are still welcome at all events, rituals, membership, as individuals, etc), because Catholic (or whatever) marriage simply wouldn't apply to them by definition, it couldn't happen.

But that's of course talking about the religious aspect of it. It gets more complicated when the churches or church officials are [i]simultaneously acting as agents of the state, providing the legal union documents, etc. For instance, some clergy in America are now arguing that their religoius freedom is being infringed if they cannot legally marry their congregants.

I do see the daftbeakers solution might be simple, but like you say Roy, I think having the religious ceremony (potentially) also serve as the legal one is important.

The solution would seem to me finding some way to make it such that clergy can perform legal marriages, but they can refuse whoever for whatever reason. Of course, there's always the option of being married by the government, so even if every clergyperson refuses to marry a couple, they can get their equal, legal treatment. And in practice, if a church won't marry their congregants, those congregants can likely find another church to perform it for them, if they want. Or, if they're devoted Catholics, they'll campaign to have the church change it's policies (as such campaigns currently exist), and meanwhile they get married and have the same rights as anyone else in the eyes of the government.

Which... I'm pretty sure is how it works in American states with marriage equality, but I'm not sure exactly. I do know that churches saying "But they'll force us to marry teh gays!" is absurd in America, but I suppose that is what could happen in Scotland without the exemption?

[daftbeaker]

I do know that churches saying "But they'll force us to marry teh gays!" is absurd in America, but I suppose that is what could happen in Scotland without the exemption?

Hopefully. It would be worth it just for the sheer apoplectic strokes that would ensue. The right wing catholics would rather shut down childrens' homes than let gay couples adopt kids, just imagine how crazy they would get over having the gays in their churches

[Cardinal Fang]

Personally I can't see a religion getting anywhere if we don't start making arbitrary restrictions and hate figures. I nominate stringy cheese as unclean and people that stand in front of train doors as infidels.

I nominate people who talk at the theatre as also being in the category of infidels.

Of course in light of the 2nd IRRYD (2. I'd Really Rather You Didn't Use My Existence As A Means To Oppress, Subjugate, Punish, Eviscerate, And/Or, You Know, Be Mean To Others. I Don't Require Sacrifices, And Purity Is For Drinking Water, Not People.), I would suggest that infidels are only subjected to being served slightly overcooked spaghetti rather than properly al dente pasta.

CF

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Attitudes like that are a big reason non-straight marriages are meeting so much resistance in the US. The religious people are freaking out that they're going to have to violate their belief systems to accommodate something they feel is wrong. In America, we have, enshrined in our constitution, freedom of religious belief and practice. The government cannot enact a law that violates the freedom of religious people to believe and act as they see fit, so long as they are not inciting or engaging in violence. That's the way it should be. As Qwerty said, if you don't like something your religion does, get a different religion and go somewhere else. Forcing the issue that religious organizations condone behavior they do not with to condone makes gays, atheists, etc. look bad, and I think the fight should be dropped and let them have their exceptions. I think the exception is a good thing.

Seriously, I'm not playing devil's advocate or anything. I think it's wrong to require people to violate their own non-violent beliefs, even if those beliefs are stupid.

[Cap'n Tedward]

Actually, the US has a very much "give on to Ceasar what is Ceasars, give onto god what is god's" approach to religion. If you don't want to marry gays in your church, don't. Simple. But when you have a couple's night fundraiser open to the public and a gay couple shows up, you HAVE to take their money and let them participate. THAT's what they're afraid of.

[Qwertyuiopasd]

Right, or the issue that came up in Kansas, Arizona, and other places, where business establishments don't want to serve gay couples, or at least not for gay events (i.e. photographer happily taking pictures of gay individuals (or maybe even duets), but refusing to participate in a same sex wedding as photographer).

But then it's too close a parallel to segregation laws, and it seems simple to say "we did this already" with the civil rights movement. Granted, it's generally a problem that self-corrects anyway. The photographer who boycotts certain weddings is just going to lose that business, and unless they're really discreet about it, they'll lose the business of straight allies as well.

I think all it takes, though, is a clear distinction of what constitutes a church operating as a religious institution with it's own freedom to define it's marriage ceremonies, or what have you, and it operating as a public space or charity or whatever. In the public operations, like Tedwards second example, I'd think they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate. Or if they want to call anything public and freely open to everyone, like their Sunday Services, those couldn't involve discrimination, though if they wanted to they could just make them private, invite-only churches (see how that works out).

[Cap'n Tedward]

The weird thing about those new laws is that in most cases, the people had the right to refuse service to anyone, so getting a law in place to deny gays was redundant. They could just as easily reserved the right to refuse gays and been done with it. Technically speaking, it wasn't about gays either, it was some kind of religious freedom act, and the only group of people that wasn't already constitutionally protected against it were gays.

[Cardinal Fang]

It always puzzles me when the Christian right (and it is pretty much nearly always them) uses "religious freedom" as an excuse to persecute gay people, given the Bible says something along the lines of "Treat others the same way you want them to treat you".

Unless of course people took that literally and started treating the Christian right the same way they treat gay people e.g refuse them service etc.

CF

[Qwertyuiopasd]

No, no, they are treating them how they'd want to be treated. They would want to be discriminated against, because it would help them to stop choosing to be gay.

Unrelated note, there are reason why "Treat people the way they would like to be treated" is a better formulation than "treat others the way you'd like to be treated." Really I suppose a middle road is sort of the ideal, but the point is you really should consider both, since maybe your Hindu neighbors don't want to be drawn out of their non-christian darkness like you would, if you were non-christian (because you totally would be open to another religion proselyting you, right?)

[Cardinal Fang]

No, no, they are treating them how they'd want to be treated. They would want to be discriminated against, because it would help them to stop choosing to be gay.

Is that part of the whole "suffering is a good thing" thing that so many religious types seem to go in for? No nookie, no alcohol, no having any fun whatsoever dammit! Thank the FSM for Pastafarianism's lax moral standards!

CF

[ToddSparks]

I'm looking for a marriage officiant in the Reno, NV area.

So far, not having much luck.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated - we want to get married this weekend, now that it is legal to do so in NV...