Interesting Links for 15-03-2012

[andrewducker]

• Twitter's tales of sexism
  (tags: sexism twitter )
• Trans fat consumption linked to greater aggression
  (tags: aggression diet health )
• The lost child who found his way home 25 years later thanks to Google Earth
  (tags: india child google maps )
• Fascinating discussion on Hacker News on how Google has caught a nasty case of The Managers
  (

Comments

[sigmonster]

"but why the hell tell churches they can't perform ceremonies?"

This isn't the case - it's "not compulsory to perform", rather than "compulsory not to perform", and therefore is up to the religion (or to the individual congregation). It certainly used to be the case that civil marriage and civil partnerships could not take place in a religious building, a restriction left over from the original establishment of civil marriage in the early 1800s and never changed, but that was removed not long ago: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-17311555.

[andrewducker]

FTA:
"Under our plans no church, mosque, temple, synagogue or other religious premises will be forced to hold gay marriage ceremonies. - in fact, they won’t be allowed to even if they want to. Religious marriage between a gay couple will remain illegal."

[sigmonster]

Yes - the ability of places of worship to perform civil partnership is very new and was on my mind. I really cannot see any reason why a chapel could host a civil partnership but not a civil marriage between the same two individuals though...

[theweaselking]

According to the sentence before, she thinks "Civil marriages can’t happen inside a church now”.

Which is to say, she thinks that right now, legal marriage is "banned" inside churches, therefore future legal marriages will still be banned.

(That's kind of the way it is in Canada: There's no such thing as marriage that is not civil marriage. Your religious ceremony is completely irrelevant and has no meaning. All that matters is the paperwork - and you can do the paperwork at the ceremony if you want to, but who cares? Apparently, your Home Secretary thinks there's a rule PROHIBITING you from getting real-married in a church. From her reputation, I suspect being wrong about stuff like that is normal?)

[andrewducker]

In the UK a religious marriage is also a legal marriage. A civil marriage is simply one that is carried out by a registrar rather than a religious celebrant. The two are otherwise identical.

Which sounds similar to Canada - in that you basically do the paperwork in the church after the ceremony. But it would mean that Quakers couldn't carry out weddings for gay people, which is just silly.

[theweaselking]

I must be missing something.

There's civil marriage and religious marriage, and the ONLY difference is who does the ceremony and files the paperwork?

What stops you from having a civil marriage in a church?

What stops a civil registrar from going to the church, and handing you the paperwork at the appropriate time while the religious officiant conducts his no-legal-meaning ceremony?

What stops a civil officiant from BEING a priest, or a priest from becoming a civil officiant?

(In Canada, your marriage paperwork must be signed by a registered officiant. Becoming a registered officiant is really easy. If you are a religious official and want to perform religious marriages, you register as an officiant, perform your religious ceremony, and file the paperwork, because civil marriage is the only LEGAL marriage.)

[alitheapipkin]

Civil marriage has to be carried out at licensed venue.

In Scotland, the marriage laws work more like Canada in practice because any 'religious' body including Humanists can become a registered celebrant and if they perform your ceremony (a 'religious' marriage by law even if they are Humanist), you can have it anywhere you please.

[theweaselking]

That sounds a lot like Canada, with the main distinction being that in Scotland all marriages, even non-religious ones, are "religious marriages", and in Canada all marriages, even the reilgious ones, are non-religious.

[alitheapipkin]

Well yes, except that civil marriage exists up here too, it's just there are more legal alternatives to it than there are in England.

[andrewducker]

Just back from a meeting, but I see my place was taken admirably :->

[alitheapipkin]

It's a pet subject of mine as you may have noticed ;) Although, I think my knowledge of the English system is a little out of date now, they appear to have brought in new legislation since I last read up on it. I'm well versed in the Scottish system though.

[alitheapipkin]

On top of what Andrew points out about her being correct, it's also more complicated because a civil marriage has to be carried out at a licensed venue and churches are not eligible to apply for a civil marriage license while they are still consecrated (someone may correct me but I think historical religious buildings which are no longer consecrated can).

[theweaselking]

.... so you can't get married in a park, or at a concert hall, or something?

What an odd rule.

Even leaving aside the "can't get married in a church unless it's the other completely-identical kind of marriage" thing.

Oh, well. Common law systems: Grown, not designed.

[alitheapipkin]

In Scotland, yes, as I say above, but in England, only if your chosen venue can get a license - quite easy for a concert hall but impossible for a public park AFAIK.

There are also strict rules about the language etc that can be used for civil ceremonies - nothing religious is allowed and as the definition of religious is left up to the Registrar, this has resulted in some people having readings mentioning souls banned and all sorts.

[skington]

When we got married - in a civil ceremony at Glasgow's beautiful registry office - we couldn't play purely instrumental music from a Peter Gabriel soundtrack because it was the soundtrack for the Last Temptation of Christ. That's fine, we chose another album instead.

I understand that now the laws in Scotland have been relaxed, even the odd supermarket is registered as a wedding venue, although googling around is unable to confirm that.

What did amuse me is that it's only recently that the law was modified to allow weddings after 5pm. The previous law was written before widespread artificial lighting; the cut-off period was designed to make sure you didn't accidentally marry the wrong person.

[sigmonster]

And having now read the story more carefully, I see that for some reason the Home Office proposes a different restriction on performing civil marriage than currently exists on performing civil partnerships, which is indeed bullshit. Gah.