Equality of marriage and love

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

As worthy and all as it probably is, life is simply too short

Probably more something to print out and wave at a foaming fundamentalist.

Its simply another example of the fact that the bible can be quote-mined to support any given position, on anything. The guy took 3 months to do it, but it would have been a lot quicker if he had been trying to prove the opposite viewpoint.

recedite wrote: »

Its simply another example of the fact that the bible can be quote-mined to support any given position, on anything. The guy took 3 months to do it, but it would have been a lot quicker if he had been trying to prove the opposite viewpoint.

Have you actually read the paper, or are you simply following Robin's advice?

looksee

I read it, or at least I read the first dozen pages then skimmed the rest, and while it was indeed a worthy effort it was quote mining and using biblical writing to prove something that could just as easily have been used to prove the opposite. His intentions were laudable and in the circumstances made his point. Realistically though, all he proved was that trying to use ancient writings to live life by today is ridiculous.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Have you actually read the paper, or are you simply following Robin's advice?

Skimmed through it. Grammar and syntax not the best either. Mind you, it was probably better than anything I ever produced as a teenager, so fair play to the guy for the attempt.

Germany passes marriage equality

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-gay-marriage-idUSKBN19L0PQ

And Malta's new PM puts forward a full marriage equality bill as well:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40459125

The RCC is not happy.

nozzferrahhtoo

Yea it was a surprise over here in Germany, for me at least. I was sitting on the loo one day reading news on my phone that "Germany might be about to consider changing the law" and then on the loo literally the next day "Gay marriage passed".

I got a weird case of temporal vertigo like a month had passed in the space of 24 hours.

Merkel somewhat magnanimous in defeat which I like to see. She openly says she is against it, and her vote was against it, but she takes the result in good faith and openly says she hopes it will promote better mutual understanding and progress in the society going forward. I like to see a politician, good or bad, be open about where they voted but being magnanimous and hopeful in defeat at the same time.... and looking for hope and potential instead of looking back at a vote lost.

Yes I read something about it, the whole thing was a bit of a surprise apparently.
Everybody had assumed that there would be no vote on it because they knew Merkel opposed SSM. Then one day somebody from the opposition was talking to her about it, and it went along the lines of...

Opposition; If it wasn't for you we'd have marriage equality in Germany.
Merkel; I'm not stopping it, I just wouldn't vote for it myself.
Opposition; But you'd tell your party to vote against it.
Merkel; No, probably not.
Opposition; OK then, we''l table a bill tomorrow.
Merkel; Fine, go on then.

And that's how it happened.

Hotblack Desiato

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Merkel somewhat magnanimous in defeat which I like to see.

Canny, more like. She knew which way this issue was going and her government (assuming she won the next election) was going to have to cave in sooner or later.
This way she keeps the conservatives happy by voting against it herself and saying her personal opinion etc. etc. but doesn't annoy everyone else by preventing it. It passed on a free vote so she can say it wasn't government policy but the will of the Bundestag.
Also removes an obstacle from potential coalition negotiations after the next election - marriage equality was a red line issue for the Greens.

There seems to be a lingering doubt over the constitutionality of marriage equality in Germany. We, of course, avoided this problem by amending the Constitution. In Germany, that would require a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Federal parliament, and I don't know if the measure would command that degree of support.

And, trivial fact of the day. There are six Muslim members in the Bundestag. All six voted in favour of marriage equality.

Annasopra

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Yea it was a surprise over here in Germany, for me at least. I was sitting on the loo one day reading news on my phone that "Germany might be about to consider changing the law" and then on the loo literally the next day "Gay marriage passed".

I got a weird case of temporal vertigo like a month had passed in the space of 24 hours.

Merkel somewhat magnanimous in defeat which I like to see. She openly says she is against it, and her vote was against it, but she takes the result in good faith and openly says she hopes it will promote better mutual understanding and progress in the society going forward. I like to see a politician, good or bad, be open about where they voted but being magnanimous and hopeful in defeat at the same time.... and looking for hope and potential instead of looking back at a vote lost.

Magnaminous?
Not at all. It was about moving politically to shut down the issue embarassing her during an election campaign and shrewdly appealing to those who support it and those who don't! This was a political move for her.

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

Magnaminous?
Not at all. It was about moving politically to shut down the issue embarassing her during an election campaign and shrewdly appealing to those who support it and those who don't! This was a political move for her.

Hey, that works too. The point is, Germany has marriage equality and those who, for whatever reason, didn't like the idea of that are now, for whatever reason, accepting it with a good grace. That's a win.

Peregrinus wrote: »

And, trivial fact of the day. There are six Muslim members in the Bundestag. All six voted in favour of marriage equality.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/18223/same-sex-marriage-passes-germany-all-six-muslims-hank-berrien
Strange but true. Green party members, which was the party most active in seeking SSM. Whether they are fully "practicing" Muslims is perhaps less sure, but in Germany there seems to be a natural immigrant affinity towards the Greens similar to the affinity that immigrants including Muslims in the UK have for the Labour party. Left wing parties tend towards open borders and multiculturalism in general.

A difference between Germany, UK and Ireland is the origin of their Muslim immigrant population. In Germany the origin is Turkey, which has a history of secularism, except for one of the parliamentarians who was of Iranian extraction.
In UK it is mostly Pakistan/Bangladesh, and in Ireland it is mostly the Middle East. These sort of places have no history of secularism, and tend more towards Salafism.

realdanbreen

robindch wrote: »

Probably more something to print out and wave at a foaming fundamentalist.

Do you regard all believers as 'foaming fundamentalists' ?

smacl

recedite wrote: »

in Ireland it is mostly the Middle East

Any references for that? Reason I ask is that most of the Muslim kids in my daughters school are North African, and of the others I know there's a mix of Turks, Pakastanis as well as Iraqis and Iranians. FWIW, we've seen a number of kids removed from my daughters school as the parents weren't happy with it actively teaching about LGBT equality. A shame really.

smacl

realdanbreen wrote: »

Do you regard all believers as 'foaming fundamentalists' ?

Hardly all of them, but as per the previous post "a teacher (that) asks his/her students to write a paper in the style of Thomas Acquinas in which the student justifies the institutional church's position on marriage equality" seems like a possible candidate. Worth remembering most Christians in this country for example voted in favour of marriage equality against the wishes of their church. I'd say the foamers are the relatively few but highly visible and vocal exceptions, e.g. certain members of the Iona institute would come to mind.

looksee

realdanbreen wrote: »

Do you regard all believers as 'foaming fundamentalists' ?

'Believer' ≠ 'foaming fundamentalist'. Why do you ask?

smacl wrote: »

Any references for that? Reason I ask is that most of the Muslim kids in my daughters school are North African, and of the others I know there's a mix of Turks, Pakastanis as well as Iraqis and Iranians. FWIW, we've seen a number of kids removed from my daughters school as the parents weren't happy with it actively teaching about LGBT equality. A shame really.

Maybe the more salafist types from the ME don't attend your daughters school, but attend the Muslim school instead. Also, I'd include Iraq, Iran Turkey as being in the ME.
Over several decades the Muslim community in Ireland was largely from the ME, reasonably well off, and often associated with medicine, as in either training in it or practicing it. They had the financial back up to build schools and mosques.
Recently, just in the last couple of years, there has been an influx from places like Somalia, Afghanistan and North Africa as part of the general migration into Europe of poorer migrants, so that is gradually changing things alright.

realdanbreen wrote: »

Do you regard all believers as 'foaming fundamentalists' ?

Nope.

That's why I used the term 'foaming fundamentalists' instead of 'believer'.

Britain's first gay muslim marriage.
The fabulous costumes are traditional Bangladeshi attire.

alan partridge aha

recedite wrote: »

Britain's first gay muslim marriage.
The fabulous costumes are traditional Bangladeshi attire.

Oh sweet God or should I say Allah.

Samaris

I rather like them. Not mad keen on the shade of gold, since I reckon it washes the white fella out (works better with darker skin tone), but it's certainly no worse than our own revered penguin suits!

Annasopra

Samaris wrote: »

I rather like them. Not mad keen on the shade of gold, since I reckon it washes the white fella out (works better with darker skin tone), but it's certainly no worse than our own revered penguin suits!

Yeah I thought they were charming too

lazygal wrote: »

Religious groups can make their own rules about marriage, as long as they don't try to legally marry a person to more than one partner. FLDS ceremonies aren't legally binding, polygamy works on an internal church system, which is not recognised by civil law.

Winston Blackmore, FLDS husband of 25 women, and his former brother-in-law (how does that work?) have been found guilty of practicing polygamy by the Supreme Court of British Columbia:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40709250

It's always going to depend on the (sometimes fairly complex) interaction between the law on marriage (i.e. how a legally valid marriage may be created) and the criminal law (i.e. what constitutes the crime of bigamy).

As a rough rule of thumb, if you do something that would result in a valid marriage but for the fact that one or both of you is married to someone else, that's likely to be the crime of bigamy. So, if you have a church wedding in a country where church weddings are legally sufficient to create a valid marriage, you're caught. There's a common perception that if you fail to complete the paperwork and send it back to the civil registrar for registration you're in the clear, bigamy-wise, but this usually isn't so.

Some places have a tougher bigamy law. In Utah, if you live with multiple people and "purport" to be married to them, that's bigamy, even if you've never had a wedding ceremony of any kind. (Utah has a tradition of tough bigamy laws, because distaste for the Mormon practice of polygamy was for a long time a barrier which prevented Utah being admitted as a state of the Union, so they've always felt the need for a clear, tough line.)

The issue in the Canadian case, SFAIK, was not whether the men concerned had committed bigamy, or had avoided the offence by not having a ceremony/not completing paperwork. It was whether having a bigamy offence at all was constitutional, given the guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of association in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The answer, obviously, was "yes, it's constitutional".

ohnonotgmail

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's always going to depend on the (sometimes fairly complex) interaction between the law on marriage (i.e. how a legally valid marriage may be created) and the criminal law (i.e. what constitutes the crime of bigamy).

As a rough rule of thumb, if you do something that would result in a valid marriage but for the fact that one or both of you is married to someone else, that's likely to be the crime of bigamy. So, if you have a church wedding in a country where church weddings are legally sufficient to create a valid marriage, you're caught. There's a common perception that if you fail to complete the paperwork and send it back to the civil registrar for registration you're in the clear, bigamy-wise, but this usually isn't so.

Some places have a tougher bigamy law. In Utah, if you live with multiple people and "purport" to be married to them, that's bigamy, even if you've never had a wedding ceremony of any kind. (Utah has a tradition of tough bigamy laws, because distaste for the Mormon practice of polygamy was for a long time a barrier which prevented Utah being admitted as a state of the Union, so they've always felt the need for a clear, tough line.)

The issue in the Canadian case, SFAIK, was not whether the men concerned had committed bigamy, or had avoided the offence by not having a ceremony/not completing paperwork. It was whether having a bigamy offence at all was constitutional, given the guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of association in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The answer, obviously, was "yes, it's constitutional".

i thought the constitutional issue was decided already before the trial?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40709250

In 2011, the BC Supreme Court upheld Canada's anti-polygamy law as constitutional following a request from BC's government for a ruling on the issue.

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

i thought the constitutional issue was decided already before the trial?

You're quite right. My bad.

Mormons have been known bigamists/polygamists in both Canada and the USA for a very long time. In more recent times Muslims have also been at it.

Why is this allowed, if it is illegal? Maybe it is not so much that the authorities have a legal difficulty, as an unwillingness to apply the law. Perhaps that is changing? Perhaps citing "religious belief" has less power nowadays to ward off the prosecutors?

ohnonotgmail

recedite wrote: »

Mormons have been known bigamists/polygamists in both Canada and the USA for a very long time. In more recent times Muslims have also been at it.

Why is this allowed, if it is illegal? Maybe it is not so much that the authorities have a legal difficulty, as an unwillingness to apply the law. Perhaps that is changing? Perhaps citing "religious belief" has less power nowadays to ward off the prosecutors?

they have tried and convicted two leaders of a mormon sect in canada. what is this unwillingness you speak of?