Why Has Nobody Thought Of This? (SSM debate)

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France has a better system: Marriage is a civil affair. Those who are religious can also have a church wedding / blessing; but the important, mandatory (legal) part is the civil joining. The system works well, religious folks usually arrange for a church wedding / blessing to follow the civil marriage, atheists don't.

So in France marriage is the opposite of what the OP suggests: It is a government / legal affair not a religious one. This is more sensible / democratic and it has also led itself nicely to the introduction of gay marriages - completely sidestepping the relevance of the church and their approval / disapproval of the matter. Religion being further relegated to a relic of the past / irrelevance here.

Seems like a good way to go. If a couple wishes to marry (opposite sex or same-sex) I don't see what business the church has interfering.

The UK system also works quite well. As atheists my wife and I got married in a registry office. No religious trappings at all, no mention of supernatural beings. Suited us both fine. Church weddings in the UK are in strong decline in favour of non-religious ceremonies held in registry offices or more recently in historical sites, castles, natural beauty spots or other places; but then people in France / UK and various other Western European countries aren't as strongly religious as the US.

Marriages are no less marriages because the ceremonies don't occur in a church or have supernatural mumbo-jumbo spoken at them. The Christian church does not own or define "marriage" as much as they like to try.

Here, in Quebec, we have an even better system. Couples don't even need to go to the registry office to get (at least most of) the benefits. Many don't marry at all and live in de facto union. I don't know the exact criteria, though, but it is a much more flexible system. People who want the official status can marry at the courthouse, and those who want the sacrament can have it with the priest as well, of course, but no piece of paper is required for the couple to have legal status.

The Netherlands also uses this system. The civil marriage is mandatory and is open to all couples of consenting adults. The religious marriage is optional and churches can apply whatever restrictions their little book requires. The civil marriage can be extremely basic (bring 2 witnesses to the city hall, sign a document, be done with it) or elaborate, with speeches, a nice location, etc... Atheists typically opt for the latter, while people that also get a religious marriage usually have the simplest civil marriage and make the religious ceremony very elaborate.

Interestingly enough, there currently is a bit of debate in the Netherlands regarding gay marriage. The point of conflict is not about gay couples getting married, but about marriage administrators refusing to marry gay couples because of religious objections. While originally this was tolerated as long as every municipality had administrators that would marry gay couples, the public opinion is shifting and there is a majority now in favour for demanding that marriage administrators can't discriminate on this point. With gay marriage being allowed for 11 years now, the general consensus is that the administrators with objections to marrying gay couples have had plenty of time to find another position in the government.

There have been similar machinations about administrators in the UK refusing to perform civil partnerships between gay couples. In my opinion they should either do the job they are being paid to do or find other employment. Allowing them a homophobic preference on the matter is no different to allowing a racist administrator to refuse to marry a black man to a white woman.

That's precisely the arguments being used here. The majority of the population agrees with this notion and the parliament has filed a motion for the minister to implement this rule. Problem is that the minister responsible is from the christian party and she is hiding behind the fact that the government has formally resigned and is only staying on to handle current affairs (as opposed to making decisions that could be considered controversial) until the next election a month from now. It's a cowardly practice and its behaviour like this that has caused this particular party to have dropped sharply in polls the last few years.

I tend to agree that Québec's situation is among the most favourable in the world--providing the widest range of options.

It is important to realize that de facto relationships in Québec bring with them no protections for the individuals upon dissolution of the relationship. The benefits that accrue are significantly less than those of marriage--which is a fundamental reason why legal same-sex marriage is an absolutely necessary part of the options avaialble to couples.

In contrast, here in British Columbia, new legislation is proposing that common-law couples will automatically become jointly and severally liable for each others' debts. That is not the circumstances that many gay couples want, and it will now oblige many couples to start creating paperwork to keep their assets and liabilities separate.

LMAO!! !! !! !
And I thought I was the one who was against freedom of speech. You show your true hypocritical colours once again...

Anyways, how is marriage supposed to work without Government approval? Contracts have no inherent power by themselves; the power comes from the Government enforcing them.

I dealt with the situation as I saw fit.

I am not surprised with an ego like yours.
I will be waiting to be picked up.

Have you looked up what ad hominem means yet or you going
continue using yourself as the authority in your appeals to authority?

"Lowly souls become full of wisdom as the low place becomes full of water."

They provide protection to the children upon dissolution, though.

Yes, but that arises from the province's parens patriae jurisdiction and is wholly distinct from the law of marriage and marriage-like relationships. A child has rights enforcable against both of its parents from the moment of birth, whether those parents are in any sort of a relationship or not.

Oh, that makes sense. Thanks!