There is a petition for to make Paganism a valid belief. If it goes ahead it will mean handfastening is legal and it will stop discrimination of the practitioners. If you wish to petition Downing Street for this to be done click on this link.
i find the grammar indicating that paganism is somehow one specific belief system to be more than slightly perplexing.
How is it discriminated against? Surely as long as the marriage is registered, it's no different to any other non-christian wedding?
As the religion is not recognised a pagan priest, priestess, druid whatever is not recognised as a celebrant like a Rabbi, Iman or Vicar is.
Exactly. A handfstening is just a commitment to each other and is not recognised as marriage. Even though Paganism has been legal since the 50's, the belief of marriage under pagan belief is not allowed in the UK. In Iceland it is, but not here.
You might want to spell 'Paganism' correctly in the title of this thread if you want to be taken seriously.
Hindus, Sikhs and Taoist Pagans amongst others get recognition from the UK govt. but not European pagan traditions. It probably would only take someone with cash to take it to the European court for the thing to fold. But personally I think marriage should be nothing to do with govt.
Dont pagan marriages fall under the Defacto family protection act? You may not be "married" but you have all the same rights etc. btw, I cant remember the actual act. Been awhile since I studied law .
Well, gays get the defacto rights aswell, and they still want to get married. I think you'll be raking in the cash . Do you have to battle eachother painted blue when you divorce?
Marriage under any belief is not legal in much of the Western world. Clergy of certain religions are authorized to act as an agent of the State to officiate at the civil part of the ceremony. Pagans can go to City Hall to do the civil part and then to whatever officiant for the religious part.
But is is not legal like Church. How come they have the right and Pagans do not? At the moment handfastenings are only a commitment ceramony, not a full marriage.
And without the civil part, so is a Church marriage. Usually the litmus test is if there are recognized institutions granting some sort of recognition to the clergy. How does one become a Pagan clergy? Is there a framework to the religion? You can walk into any church, synaguoge or mosque and what happens is not that different than any other. I'm not saying the lack of recognition is right, I just don't know enough about it.
In the UK, I think you have to be recognised by the Pagan federation as someone who is capable of performing a handfastening. I will ask a few people I know about it.
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't the entire concept of paganism (and related concepts such as heathenism and apostasy) purely a historiographical construct and not a specific religion? Someone who was not a member or subject of the civilization or an adherent or subject of the religion whose perspective was being taken was a pagan or heathen, and someone who converted away from the preferred religion an apostate. English speakers often hear the word 'pagan' as applied from the worldview of one of the major flavors of desert monotheism as practiced along pre-modern social norms--is there a specific religion whose worldview you are choosing from which to define paganism?
