And what power does that hold over the individual? It has no force of law, so… none.
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My mother recalled the 1960 Presidential election as the first time she (a girl in a family of practicing Catholics) became aware that anti-Catholic sentiment in America was a thing, or that anyone would assume a Catholic politician would be doing the bidding of the Pope.
Which of course led to Kennedy being forced to defend his faith in public, much like how Obama was forced to defend the words of his former pastor (while simultaneously countering accusations that he was a secret Muslim).
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Until that tax benefit is removed (along with other privileges accruing to people with marriage/civil union licenses), the state does have a strong claim toward arbitrating the legitimacy of unions, definitely a stronger one than any religious institution. And until that tax benefit is removed, there’s no reason that same-sex unions under marriage should not be recognised by the state in exactly the same way.
As @KathyPartdeux pointed out, there are also other benefits to the state recognising a civil union (I’d add child welfare). A civil union is, in the end, a standardised way of officially recognising the creation of a new family. Most people have no fundamental problem with that concept, as it’s beneficial in a lot of ways to society. The controversies surround who gets to enjoy that civil union, and since 1967 we’ve making progress on expanding access beyond same-race heterosexual romantic couples to other groupings of consenting adults.*
In the end, what Francis is saying is that the Church is no long officially opposed to the state allowing access to civil unions by same-sex couples. It’s essentially a “render unto Caesar” statement.
Who cares? Certainly not the person leaving, unless they have an overblown opinion of themselves and their indispensability to the the RCC. The Catholic Church only makes a big deal about their “When You’re a Jet” rule when someone famous publicly tries to leave the church. No obligations are owed to the Vatican by people who leave the faith, so there’s not much point in fretting over the RCC’s belief.
[* as the Boomers age, the next step will likely be a demand that friends in non-romantic and non-sexual relationships can have access to the state-recognised benefits of civil unions. There’s also the possibility of allowing more than two people to join in an official civil union.]
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Not going to happen any time soon. Until the polygamists can draft versions of various laws affected by marital status to a form which is equitable for all involved, nobody is going to bother stepping into that dirtpile. Polygamy is just too messy for our binary based marriage laws.
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Agreed. It’s a possibility in the long-term, but there aren’t enough polygamist families to make it happen and it’s difficult enough dealing with two-person unions.
Extending civil unions to non-romantic couples, though, is more likely. There are a lot of older people who are single for various reasons (divorced, spouse died, never married) who will really want to enjoy the benefits of a civil union with a close friend in their final years.
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Is that garlic that I see hanging around the throne? Presumably to prevent Benedict from escaping and devouring the blood of the faithful?
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My great aunt after 10 years of widowdom remarried at 80 under those circumstances. They were such a cute couple.
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Religious austerity is often orthogonal to goodness.
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Zero.
I cared. I did not want them to think I was part of their cult.
Are you famous? Did you do donate more than $200k in cash to them over the course of a decade? If not, they weren’t thinking about you at all. Wouldn’t have even noticed you were gone if you didn’t make a fuss.
It’s your right to care about such things, of course, but don’t expect much response from others beyond “who cares?”, which is another way of saying “why are you wasting your time and energy on a person/institution who doesn’t give you any thought at all?”
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I don’t think there is such a thing as case law in the European Court of Justice, which would be the highest appeals court for GDPR matters? It’s based mainly on French legal traditions IIRC
IA very much NAL, though
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Information commissioners do follow practice, if you look at the UK office for example the guidelines are very much based on cases. The ECJ absolutely does follow precedent and national courts will follow European precedent too.
I hadn’t read anything on religious institutions exemptions in GDPR which is why I thought it might be case based, the continental civil law systems obviously being not so hot on religious privileges but I think what it actually says is that treatment of religions is to some extent a member state competence based on existing arrangements.
Which, living here, is a disappointment. I’d be much happier if the EU decided that. This is actually a very live issue in Ireland and may ultimately bring down the current government. They are relying on a rather unique interpretation of GDPR and the role of the attorney general to imply that they are forced to seal the records of a commission of inquiry for decades.
At the very least the Green Party is fucked and will fall apart. They’ll never get so much as my final transfer again. I’m furious. I know, or knew, the minister bringing forward the legislation. He looked haunted in the Dáil when he replied to a direct question from Holly Cairns as to whether they were going to even consider any of the 100 proposed amendments or were they wasting their time. He’s obviously under huge pressure from the other parties in the coalition but he should resign rather than insult survivors of institutional abuse like this.
Plus as a lecturer in EU law he knows rightly that he’s talking shite about the legal situation.
Sorry for the rant, like most of the country I’m livid.
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Oh no need to apologise, that’s very interesting, it’s an issue I hadn’t heard about before and I can certainly understand the need to vent about political frustrations.
As an outside observer I am continually amazed how much your country’s politics is occupied with addressing injustices of the past (or not addressing them in this case). Even if it is being blocked by the government the issue is very much in the public eye at least. I would compare that with how the UK treats similar issues but it must be frustrating for an Irishperson to have everything your country does constantly compared to the UK rather than being discussed on its own merits.
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Indeed, he seems a bit different, like someone who lived his life among people. My favorite picture of Pope Francis:
(This crucifix is a replica of the one created by Luís Espinal Camps, a Jesuit priest , who was murdered by a by a Bolivian-government death squad. Morales gave the item to Pope Francis when Pope Francis visited the site where Espinal was killed.)
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One of the greens’ sticking points was that they wanted to close direct provision centres, which are current injustices, I assume this current issue (the commission was set up badly by the last government) wasn’t on their radar. It’s the kind of shitty situation you get into if you lie down with the right.
It is splintering the party.
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I expect nothing. I am contributing my experience and oppinion to this conversation.
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