What is special about religious leaders, that the law of this country allows them to perform weddings? Why not limit that to judges only?

I’m confused about why you’re making this about atheists…
Are you questioning why atheists don’t have someone dressed as an elf marry them? Have you considered that many atheists don’t have members of clergy or other religious folk marry them?

Did you mean Santa Claus?

Religious leaders are authorized to perform weddings, because many people believe in religions and want to have their nuptials blessed in their church.

It saves the state money to acknowledge those ceremonies once the marriage certificate is properly filled out.

Because elves don’t exist either.

@Likeradar In another post several people said they were an atheist and that God was nothing more than a fairytale like Santa Claus. I thought I would ask this question to get a better perspective on that statement.

Traditionally, marriages were performed by clergy, and marriage was strictly religious institution. It is only relatively recently that the government has gotten involved.
For a little while in the Middle Ages, it was possible to be married without a priest around.

In many states, you must first get a marriage license from the county clerk before a marriage ceremony. The ceremony itself does not require the presence of clergy. Indeed, almost anyone can perform a wedding (i.e. the helpers of Santa Claus) as long as they register in advance (I’ve been to several weddings where a friend of the couple performed the ceremony after paying some surcharge to become a nominal minister). This is, quite frankly, as it should be, since marriage is a contract between two people.

@Lightlyseared But, if God does not exist and his helpers (ministers, priests,etc.) do exist and perform weddings, why can’t the helpers we see at the department stores perform weddings?

@RANGIEBABY If you want Papa Smurf to marry you, all it takes is for your helpful friend to be ordained online, apparently for free. I don’t understand your point.

@shilolo That is very interesting, I didn’t know that. I do like learning something new everyday. Thanks, I will look into that further.

@RANGIEBABY At the very least, there’s training and job description to consider. Would you want your wedding conducted by the department store clerk? Would he want to conduct your wedding?

Really, the logic behind the ceremony breaks down if you take God out of it.

Now that I think of it, properly licensed ship captains at sea can perform weddings as well, though paperwork must still be filed at the destination.
From TvTropes:
The trope may have originated in the The Age Of Sail when Europeans would have to travel by ship for months at a time to reach far flung colonies. A couple could meet, court, and marry all while still enroute to their destination. The real life marriages would be officiated not by the captain while at sea but instead by government officials during port calls.

Because Santa’s little helpers aren’t tall enough to oversee the exchange of the wedding vows? Lol.

@MRSHINYSHOES you are funny.

@shilolo my point is: If the priest, ministers, etc, are only helpers of something that does not exist, how can they have any more power than Santa Claus, who does not exist. These points were brought up by others, so I want to know more of their way of thinking.
I stopped considering the possibility of God when I realized that the logic explaining his existence doesn’t hold up to scrutiny any more than the logic explaining the existence of Santa Claus does. Truthfully, I believed in Santa Claus a lot longer than I was supposed to too.
As a little kid, I always thought god was sort of like Santa Claus—everyone knew he wasn’t real, but we were all supposed to pretend to believe in him to make the grownups happy.

@RANGIEBABY And my point is that they really don’t have any more power than Santa Claus, because anyone can be “ordained” as a minister and marry people (dressed as Santa, Boy George, or whatever).

There is nothing special about them other than people think they’re special. If one is only married by a priest without a marriage license, the marriage is void. In some cases, many priests (like the on in the Orthodox Christian church of my aunt’s) think that a civil marriage (like that of my husband and myself) isn’t ‘real’ until it’s done in the church, which is hilarious. If one wants to also get the priest (who has permission to marry people) in on their gig, they can. If one doesn’t want to have a priest, they don’t have to. I don’t think people thinking god is like santa claus for adults has much to do with who can marry because there are human rules to that.

As @shilolo pointed out you don’t have to be clergy to perform a wedding ceremony. I actually wish in the US that the civil part and the religious part were completely separate, and that clergy could not officiate a legal marriage. It might help people see that civil marriage and religious marriage are too different things entirely.

Marriage is a social institution, and religious leaders tend to be at the center of the biggest centralized social institutions.

My only concern is why the hell marriage as a civil contract exists, or why civil unions and civil marriages aren’t the same damn thing. Why can’t my uncle’s husband visit him in the hospital by my mom could visit my dad?

@JLeslie Can you be more explicit on the differences?
@Fenris More to the point, why can’t anyone be allowed to visit a friend in the hospital?

@RANGIEBABY The difference between civil marriage and religious?

Civil marriage is about laws. When you get legally married you are basically legally making a contract with the otehr person. It governs ownership of property, shared money gained during the marriage, parental rights for children born during the marriage, how you are taxed by the federal government, the list goes on and one. I always say getting married is the one contract you sign without actually getting to read the documents. Technically you could read through the laws related to civil marriage, but who does?

Religious marriage is also a type of contract between the two peolpe, but in the eyes of the law it is much like a verbal contract, not inforceable, and does not afford both parties many of the rights and protections they would get if legally married. Some states do have laws protecting couples who have been living together for several years, known as a common law marriage.

My husband’s parents did their civil marriage first, and then a week later had a rushed church wedding at the instance of her mother. My sister-in-law did both in the same day, but they were separate events on the day of the wedding. They are Mexican, and in Mexico it is kept very separate. Interesting that in some ways Mexico, typically referred to as a Catholic Country takes some very careful steps to keep church and state very separate.

I think Americans mush it all together, and barely know what they are getting into legally when they get married.

@Fenris Because men cannot marry men. Maybe you could instead direct your vitriol at the laws that regulate who can visit the hospitalized and who cannot, instead of spitting it at marriage.

@Nullo You have a point about hospitals visitation rules, and that maybe they need to be addressed while the country battles about gay marriage laws. But, I think the rules governing who can make life ending decisions or maybe even medical procedure decisions for those who cannot speak for themselves are actually governed by laws, not just the hospitals. Gay couples can create legal documents for these situations, but with marriage it is automatic.

I’m not dealing with you nullo. I’m tired of your shit.

/thread.

@Fenris You’re the one that brought it up, pal, not me.

I don’t know what the big deal is. Anyone can get a form called a Durable power of Attorney, fill it out and name anyone they want to make medical decisions for them if they cannot make them for themselves. Then have it notarized and done. I am married and my husband and I have a Durable Power of Attorney (DPA) for each other. I had one for my mother. Why don’t same sex partners get this as well? Marriage does not insure all powers, quite like a DPA. This issue of visitation seems easy enough to solve with a Hospital Visitation Authorization. Check your state requirements.
As far as Insurances go there is this thing called “beneficiary”.
The eight of survivorship depends on how you take Title of the property.
So what else are you not getting that married couples get?

@Fenris To answer the rest of your question – which I failed to do the first time – I figure that marriage began solely as a religious institution, and gradually, through the magic known as bureaucracy, gained a civil function as well. It is within the very nature of government to catalogue and control, and marriage was enough of a constant that it could be seized by papery tendrils.
This is part of what irks me about the gay marriage thing: certain groups are trying to fully control via government what is at its core a non-governmental institution. I have no more sympathy for those challenging the Proposition 8 ruling than I would for Steve Jobs – at his present level of affluence – applying for food stamps.

First of all, there is NO reason same-sex couples have to do these extraneous and costly procedures when heterosexuals don’t have to and secondly, see here.

@RANGIEBABY In FL if a man owns a property (meaning it is only deeded in his name) that he in his wife live in, when he dies, and if he wills it to his girlfriend, the wife is still entitled to part of the house, no matter what his will says. If they are both on the Deed it is owned as an Estate by the Entireities. It basically means the married couple is treated as one person.

If a home is owned by two or more unmarried people they have the legal option of ownership as Joint Tenants or Tenants in common. If your lawyer is an idiot, or you are not perfectly aware of the difference you can get screwed. I assume other states have such categories of ownership as well. Joint tenancy means the two people who own it have the rights of survivorship. Tenancy in common means one of the parties can seel their half of the house without the approval of the other person, and will it to whomever they want.

Married people simply have more protections.

And, as someone pointed out why should two committed people who want to share their lives have to go through a bunch of legal hopes, and have to think of every they can be screwed to protect themselves, when married people don’t have to. Not to mention the tax man takes money when money changes hands, married couples with rights of survivorship don’t have these troubles either.