Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon no longer will sign civil marriage licenses

Dorothea

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I'm listening to an AFR podcast on this issue. Here's what Fr. Patrick wrote to his congregation about not signing the marriage license:


"Because the State of Illinois, through its legislature and governor's office, has now re-defined marriage, marriage licenses issued by agencies of the State of Illinois will no longer be required (or signed) for weddings here at All Saints in Chicago."

This excerpt is from:

Sacraments vs. State Marriage Licenses, on Religion | uexpress

Here's the link to the AFR link interviewing Fr. Patrick (two different interviews):

http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/features/one_priest_one_state

I personally think the church should marry people through the sacrament. I don't think the State should be involved. They should be separate things.
 

buzuxi02

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Its deeper than that. They dont even know why marriage arose 10,000 years ago and is the same reason it exists to this day. They dont know the word matrimony is latin for motherhod. They haven't even realized the whole reason for offering incentives to heteros so they can form family units is so the community wont be filled with single moms on welfare.

What is the reason for civil marriage? To provide incentives to avoid the disaster found in poor inner city neighborhoods where most women have 5 kids and no dads, so to keep men inline unlike the polygamists who have 40 kids and are unemployed and the women thinking its normal. Not exactly a stable tax base or quality of life is it?

instead modern government tells us its so they can print out certificates to keep tabs on which duos sleep in the same bed.
 
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ZaidaBoBaida

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I wanted to have a civil wedding separate from our religious wedding, but the members of our Quaker meeting had a fit about that idea. My husband wanted to keep the meeting happy, and I wanted to keep him happy....

But, yeah, I think what happens at the court house needs to be separated from what happens in the church.
 
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E.C.

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I think in the end we'll have to go to one of two systems.


In Lebanon the state relies on the religious authorities for marriage records - both Christian and Muslim.

In Germany the couple registers their marriage in the courthouse then does whatever religious wedding they desire.
Frankly, I'm fine with either one.

Back in the early 20th century the state and federal governments kept no vital records and instead all births and marriages were kept in family Bibles (usually found between the Old and New Testaments). We didn't care about such things until issues of state residency and taxes became big. I propose a simple solution: eliminate such tax [breaks] which will eliminate the need for the state to keep track of vital records therefore eliminating their need to keep track of marriages.
 
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All4Christ

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Dorothea said:
I personally think the church should marry people through the sacrament. I don't think the State should be involved. They should be separate things.

Agreed 110%!
 
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buzuxi02

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I think in the end we'll have to go to one of two systems.


In Lebanon the state relies on the religious authorities for marriage records - both Christian and Muslim.

In Germany the couple registers their marriage in the courthouse then does whatever religious wedding they desire.
Frankly, I'm fine with either one.

Back in the early 20th century the state and federal governments kept no vital records and instead all births and marriages were kept in family Bibles (usually found between the Old and New Testaments). We didn't care about such things until issues of state residency and taxes became big. I propose a simple solution: eliminate such tax [breaks] which will eliminate the need for the state to keep track of vital records therefore eliminating their need to keep track of marriages.


I agree. The first option was in use in Greece till 1983 or about. Worked great. Its in use in Israel as well. Its a system which was the norm in the Ottomon empire when the muslim government didnt want to get involved with the customs of the non muslim minorities.
 
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RileyG

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Agreed 110%!

Yes, I agree. I know I am not allowed to debate here, but I believe the state should do what is best for society as a whole: protect marriage between one man and one woman for obvious biological reasons.

Just my two cents.
 
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gzt

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I think moving back to a system where it is clear the state is recording that a marriage has taken place rather than the state being the one doing the marrying with somebody else as its agent (jurisdictions with marriage by common law can be interpreted this way, but they are few and for good reason). I think it is important to have somebody guaranteeing that the people getting married are the sort that are able to get married (eg not siblings), are not already married, that everybody agrees that they are married, and that they can't just run out without any legal recourse. Given the religious pluralism of much of the world, and especially in America the exceeding popularity of ultra-congregational polity, religious registration of marriage alone is not sufficient. I also think that for Orthodox to perform marriages and completely ignore the legal apparatus is not a good solution because we can't guarantee the protections above.
 
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Dorothea

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I think in the end we'll have to go to one of two systems.


In Lebanon the state relies on the religious authorities for marriage records - both Christian and Muslim.

In Germany the couple registers their marriage in the courthouse then does whatever religious wedding they desire.
Frankly, I'm fine with either one.

Back in the early 20th century the state and federal governments kept no vital records and instead all births and marriages were kept in family Bibles (usually found between the Old and New Testaments). We didn't care about such things until issues of state residency and taxes became big. I propose a simple solution: eliminate such tax [breaks] which will eliminate the need for the state to keep track of vital records therefore eliminating their need to keep track of marriages.
Those make sense to me.
 
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Antony in Tx

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Interestingly, my wife and I executed an "Affidavit of Common Law Marriage" at the courthouse four months before our Wedding in the Church. This was so that we could put her on my insurance at work, as hers was expiring. We had Father's blessing to do this and understood that it was not a substitute for the Sacrament. Interestingly, we were instructed that the Common Law Marriage was not sufficient for her to effect a name change. thatwould require a "Full Marriage License" or a court order, so Father signing a License for us saved us the cost of a court visit and petition to change her name.
 
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rusmeister

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Good for Fr Patrick!
Buzuxi is right; there were reasons for the tax breaks; canceling them for legitimate families is bad; it would be preferable, though, to the society-destroying movement now in its ascendancy. But it won't help, because tax breaks are not what they really want.

I've been forced to drastically reduce the time frames I had predicted for these evils. I had thought this at least ten years away, and efforts to seek approval of pedophilia, necrophilia, etc a generation away (20-25 years). I now have to move the latter up to five years from now. Trial balloons have already been sent up.
 
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Dorothea

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I'm afraid you're right, Rus.

On the interview, Fr. Patrick made a good point about why this is so important. Changing marriage is the end of civilization or words to that effect....because marriage has been there for like 10,000 years. Without that and the make up of it, you have nothing, and society falls apart. I'd never thought about that before, or rather, it hasn't sunk in til now.

In my next class, in the discussion introduction board, three out of the five students (including me in that five) - are non religious. One is an atheist who grew up Catholic. One grew up Christian and now is kind of Christian (whatever that means), and another isn't religious anymore, who also grew up Christian. You had to say what culture you are in or grew up in. That's why this came up. This really is showing the falling away of people from Christ/the faith that the book Ultimate Things (Orthodox perspective of the end times) talks about. It said in the last days, just professing you're a Christian will be remarkable.

One of the gals - the non religious one - lives with four people. Her roommate is married, and her husband has a girlfriend. She called it palimony I think. This kind of shocked me, but then I wondered how common this really is, and how much will it spread? My friend said it's a trend/fad, it's the "IN" thing, like the homosexuality things is now considered all right, and changing one's sex is now considered okay because "at least they'll be happy." They don't realize the psychological and spiritual anguish these people are facing.

Anyway, it's quite disheartening. What was also disheartening was the stats on the interview that the Orthodox were at the bottom of all Christian groups in two things - gay marriage and abortion. Only 30% think gay marriage is not right, and only 30% think abortion is wrong! Fr. Patrick said obviously we're failing in our catechism classes. No kidding! This is something my husband (and I) will have to face if and when he's ordained.
 
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I was sort of taken aback when Fr. Reardon claimed that he thinks SSM is worse than abortion. Did that stand out to anyone else?

I dunno but it seems that you find more Christians justifying SSA than abortion. even many political and religious "conservatives" who fight against abortion think the gay agenda is fine because they aren't "hurting" anyone. so I think it's the insidiousness of the deception, if that makes any sense.
 
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I'm afraid you're right, Rus.

On the interview, Fr. Patrick made a good point about why this is so important. Changing marriage is the end of civilization or words to that effect....because marriage has been there for like 10,000 years. Without that and the make up of it, you have nothing, and society falls apart. I'd never thought about that before, or rather, it hasn't sunk in til now.

In my next class, in the discussion introduction board, three out of the five students (including me in that five) - are non religious. One is an atheist who grew up Catholic. One grew up Christian and now is kind of Christian (whatever that means), and another isn't religious anymore, who also grew up Christian. You had to say what culture you are in or grew up in. That's why this came up. This really is showing the falling away of people from Christ/the faith that the book Ultimate Things (Orthodox perspective of the end times) talks about. It said in the last days, just professing you're a Christian will be remarkable.

One of the gals - the non religious one - lives with four people. Her roommate is married, and her husband has a girlfriend. She called it palimony I think. This kind of shocked me, but then I wondered how common this really is, and how much will it spread? My friend said it's a trend/fad, it's the "IN" thing, like the homosexuality things is now considered all right, and changing one's sex is now considered okay because "at least they'll be happy." They don't realize the psychological and spiritual anguish these people are facing.

Anyway, it's quite disheartening. What was also disheartening was the stats on the interview that the Orthodox were at the bottom of all Christian groups in two things - gay marriage and abortion. Only 30% think gay marriage is not right, and only 30% think abortion is wrong! Fr. Patrick said obviously we're failing in our catechism classes. No kidding! This is something my husband (and I) will have to face if and when he's ordained.

Yes, the whole "Open Marriage" is actually quite "fashionable". There was a news story about several adults (6 in all I think) that were married to their spouse, but had relationships with one another. They had multiple children too.

The whole transgendered thing reminds me of the botched circumcision Dennis/Brenda who ultimately led him and his twin brother to commit suicide. :(

Edit: David Reimer. Tragic. Just tragic. :(
 
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rusmeister

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Polyamory is the word.

You do understand that that word is a recent invention, an evil euphemism, right?
(I was there when the San Francisco intelligentsia was coining and tossing thecword around so as to avoid saying "polygamy".)
 
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