In the Catholic wedding, the priest and congregation certainly thought that TheirGod had sanctioned the wedding and the couple. With all the joy in the room, I'm not certain that they would be wrong.
That's totems for you. Would there have been any less joy among pagans or buddhists?
siegestate:
They could have gotten a religious ceremony on top of that, but didn't.
If you're not part of a sub-community, its rituals won't have any mojo for you and you're unlikely to bother with them.
The difference with civil ceremonies is that there are legal and financial rights, expectations and privileges.
Anthropological nuance aside, denying those to a group is discriminatory.
Difficult not to concur, since I made the same point.
I also said the same, minus the smear on AnthropologicalNuanceTM. I don't feel like dragging this out, but one must agree that there is more to life than legal and financial rights, expectations and privileges. I can't think of any, but certainly there must be something. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
