Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticCat
The bolded is what I'm talking about. In every state, so far as I know, a religion-related officiant (priest, minister, rabbi . . . ) is a state-recognized and state-empowered officiant, so that the religion-related officiant's participation in the marriage ceremony (and signature on the marriage license) makes the marriage legally recognized and legally binding.
In many countries, this is not the case. In Spain, to continue the example I was using, a church wedding means that the couple are married in the eyes of the church, but they are not married in the eyes of the state. They must be married by a civil authority for the state to consider them married. So what happens is that to get married, a couple goes first to the civil authority (the magistrate's office or whatever) and gets married civilly. They then go to the church for the religious ceremony, if they want that.
Hardly a scientific survey, I know, but almost every member of the clergy I have heard express an opinion on the subject dislikes the way we do things here. They dislike being agents of the state and would rather keep civil marriage and religious marriage separate.
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Yes, but also in many states, the person does not have to be religious as well be it a justice of the peace, judge, ship captain (LOL) that's why I said it could be argued we are not so much in bed with religion as we think we are sometimes.