Reply #55: I don't think that's an accurate characterization. [View All]

[AP]

Every state in the nation requires a civil registration and a ceremony for a marriage.

They provide the JP as an alternative to a religious ceremony. I have no idea, but I suspect the JoP marriage entered the books in the mid 1800s, or maybe even later.

It's not that the church is deputized as an agent of the state. It's that the JoP is the secular alternative to the church.

Liberals should be outraged by the charade. Why isn't it enough to just register? Why do you need any kind of ceremony?

This is the only area of the law that looks to the church for a nod to let them confer rights.

When you die, the gov't doesn't look to the church. It doesn't when you're born or when you pay taxes or when you move from state to state or when you enter into any other kind of contract. Why should it have anything to say about with whom you can enter into legal relationships.