Comments on: VP Pick

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:33:50 +0000

I wouldn’t dispute that at all Matt, in fact that’s exactly what I had in mind; it’s a legalistic thing. That’s fine for a legal arrangement, but for the religious side of marriage that just doesn’t seem valid.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:13:14 +0000

Basically I believe what an annulment says is if the person you married turns out to be quite different after marriage than before, you could say “this isn’t really who I thought I was marrying.” And sadly I believe there are a lot of people who get married before they think though how they as a couple will work out various issues of life to ensure good compatibility, who probably don’t deserve an “escape clause.” But if a gal’s gentle prince charming turns out to be an abusive husband, she could make the case “this abusive person is NOT who I intended to marry.”

Wiki states it this way: “Therefore, an annulment of a marriage is much more analogous to a finding that a contract of sale was invalid, and hence, that the property for sale must be considered to have never legally transferred possession, than analogous to a divorce, which is more like returning the property after a consummated sale.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annulment

I agree it’s not a real clear or easy to understand concept. You do need to go through a series of steps and provide proof, so it’s not an easy “out” or automatic decision.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:02:31 +0000

I’ve always found the annulment thing rather legalistic. I’ve been married over a decade, so I’m guessing it doesn’t apply anyway. but even if I’d decided the day of the wedding that I’d made a horrible mistake, or my wife realized what a wastrel I am, claiming that the marriage never existed is just silly.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:24:43 +0000

I believe there are too many issues to narrow a VP choice to those two criteria, although I’d guess a large percentage of Republicans already meet them but are not “perfect” candidates. But I agree your argument “for life” has strong support in the Bible. The Catholic church supports that position as well, and a lot of Protestants have a hard time with it. Well, a lot of Catholics do too. That’s why they have the annulment process, which has some strict requirements that if met, actually declares your marriage never existed.

By: Servius

Servius — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:37:04 +0000

You’re correct. We cannot live up to God’s perfect standard.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%207:1%20-%208:17;&version=31;

Oh, and yes, I think it’s silly to try to insist on a “True Christian” for any political office. We should rather seek those who are wise which would rule out 90% of our political class. Better would be to improve the wisdom of our voting public, particularly in reference to the concept of unintended consequences of government action.