[Magdalen] Ireland

[Roger Stokes]

On 26/05/2015 00:45, Jim Guthrie wrote:
>> Yes, I agree. We (as an example) have never wished to marry (yea,
>> e'en after forty-nine years together), agreeing that, even though
>
> Much of the discussion fails to recognize that it all depends -- 
> depends on jobs and income, depends on the desire to have kids, 
> depends on many civil things that are irrelevant to church of any 
> kind, though some, like the RC's have tried to adopt the policy "Those 
> civil things belong to US because WE determine who gets married."

When the Irish republic was established the overwhelming majoroty of the 
population were practising Roman Catholics.  As has been onserved before 
that Vhurch had an influebce on the Constitution and civil legislation.  
That is what happened.

> It's a goofy argument -- one that hasn’t been relevant in the United 
> States in about a hundred years.
but one that worked in Ireland 80 years ago.

> It should also be noted that in the 18th and 19th Century in North 
> America, church or church-approved weddings were in the minority by 
> far -- the majority of marriages in the U.S. were "Common Law" until 
> the 1920s, at least -- eclipsed by immediate government/civil 
> recognition of the knot was tied formally, rather than waiting some 
> years and going through a lot of legal hassle.
>
> Have no idea how things worked in other countries.

This thread is about Ireland, not the USA.

> But I hasten to add that with the number of churches now recognizing 
> and celebrating same sex marriages,  it has become positively 
> un-American of the Catholic Bishops and Conservative Evangelicals to 
> demand government enforce THEIR teaching against other denominations.

That is where you and I profoundly agree.  Churches and other religious 
groupings may specify what is, amd is not, accepteble for their 
members.  They should not seek to have their own moral viewpoints 
enshrined in civil law unless they can demonstrate a pragmatic argument 
for doing so (such as the law against murder). To overreach in this way 
is, in the end. counterproductive as it will lead to the rejection of 
the underlying rationale.

Roger