Abolish Legal Marriage!

Those things relate to how many children one has and where one lives. Exchange of vows wouldn't affect them in the slightest.

How do you propose to distinguish between claims by seperate family units from those who are attempting to defraud the state, since you have allowed for the existence of such circumstances legally

The same way we do now, child benefit doesn't relate to marriage at present, it relates to children. Children related benefits don't relate do marriage anyway, so they don't have a bearing on this argument.

Marraige has, for many people, a religious significance.

Including me. I'm a very religious person, and the religious wedding my wife and I had was one of the most significant days in my life. That said being religious is a matter of one's own attitude about various metaphysical and moral issues. It isn't anyone else's concern.

Therefore, I would think that there should be a legal basis of recording marragies, so that family law can then be applied.

Officially religious marriages and civil marriages are already completely separate in this country anyway. Some people who have a religious marriage can have a civil marriage at the same time. However the point of civil marriage is pretty much nil at this stage, with the increased recognition of the rights of unmarried couples (whether gay or straight).

While we could allow other religions to act as registrars the way that some Christian priests currently can and drop the restriction that the two parties to a marriage must be of different sex it seems to me rather pointless. We have those restrictions because the very notion of a civil wedding is a hang-over from a co-joined Church and State. We don't need to recognise in law something that is only a matter of those involved.

when it comes to children and family circumstances I would show deference to a married couple, as it lends extra stability to a situation due to the vows exchanged,

I can get a religious divorce in a matter of days, I can even perform it myself! The degree of "stability" offered varies from religion to religion, as different religions have different notions about the nature of marriage. That in itself is an argument about legal codification of such religious practices.
Even within the religions which prohibit or strongly discourage divorce the fact is that it happens (to which my divorced Roman Catholic parents can attest). The stability notion just doesn't play in the real world.

It gives extra purpose and meaning to those vows, as well as providing an extra incentive for people who have decided to wed to stay together.

• If the State's blessing means that much to you you are a lot more patriotic than I
• If you are only staying together for that reason face facts and get divorced now!

Talliesin, what specific parts of the state knowing about your marital status do you object to?

I just don't see the point. The state not knowing things it doesn't need to know is a good general privacy principle.
In attempting to legally encode a religious/spiritual practice the result is a bit messy and inevitably involves bringing attitudes from one or a few of those religions into the legal concept, hence the current discrimination.

Most people in this country complete the civil registration of their marriage immediately after the religious ceremony and this applies to more than just Catholic / Christian marriages.

Only a few religions can have the civil registration performed immediately after the religious ceremony, though they do cover the majority of people who proclaim a faith. If I perfom a wedding the people I marry would have to have a completely separate civil ceremony if they wanted to (and were allowed to) be legally married.
The primary reason why the ministers of the largest sects in the country can perform civil registrations is primarily to reduce the logistical strain on the registrar's office.

[Stuff about Child Benefit is] irrelevant for this debate.

Agreed.

Is this a gay discussion or a Pagan discussion?

It's a discussion about an issue that comes up a lot in Gay circles, Pagan circles, Feminist circles and elsewhere.

Like most gays and bisexuals I used to think that it was important that the law allow same-sex marriage.
Like most Irish people of a minority faith I used to think that it was important that the law gave the same privleges to other faiths that it does to a few currently regarding the ability to register a civil marriage immediately after the religious ceremony. Like most Feminists I had a few dozen differences with the legal situation of couples. (The latter concerns are those that have been best met so far in the last couple of decades).

Certainly I would still agree that as long as there is such a thing as a "legal marriage" then the above concerns need to be met.

Actually getting married has made me reconsider what was and wasn't significant about it, and led me to the conclusion that the State being involved was of little value.

Yes the thread could also have started on the Pagan board, with a slightly different focus, but that board wasn't in existence at the time.

And what are you on about, you can get a religious divorce in a matter of days? I don't know what religion you belong to, but it sounds frighteningly fickle to me.

Just lacking in bureaucracy and authority. The reality of almost any divorce is that the proceedings only begin once it has reached a point of being inevitable. A couple getting to that point will be a completely different matter to whether it takes 4 years or 4 minutes to get the legalities sorted.

Try reading the Protection of the Family Act to see why it's important, legally.

The reality of modern-day Irish family life is causing the laws concerned to increasingly accommodate the reality that many families do not include a legally-married couple. If it's really all that important as regards to the protection of the family then the family is screwed anyway.

However, if certain groups don't have rights, it doesn't mean they should be taken form others.

Agreed. The question is whether the best way to make this more egalitarian would be to tweak what we have now, or radically overhaul it. I believe the latter, though certainly changing the rather ridiculous situation we have now w.r.t. same-sex marriage would be better than nothing.

I'm only saying it shouldn't have been presented as a GLB issue ("only") if there are other factors you want considered.

LGB issues don't exist in a vacuum. I am primarily interested in this as an LGB issue, because that seems to me to be by far the greatest problem we currently have with the system of legally recognised marriages we have. However it makes little sense to present my view and not touch on other groups that it affects (especially if I am also a member of one of those other groups).