EasyTimes, just viewed your link.

Our tax dollars in action.

Sickening.

David, just to be clear - you are saying that Australian law overrides "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another commits adultery" or "And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits addultery" and that anybody who teaches that stuff or otherwise tries to convince someone else that it's true is going against Australian law and values?

I'll be interested to see how your fellow fundies handle your rejection of the teachings of Jesus. Interesting times ahead.

R0bert

Hi Easy and Powerful... yes.. that vid is very illuminating.
Banjo... I didn't mean the thread to be just about divorce..nope.. the whole issue of Australian law and outside cultures.. the Marriage bit was conveniently highlighted in that link.

To answer your question.. If a man is married in Australia.. unless he divorces his first wife, he cannot bring a 2nd here even if he goes overseas and marries her. I spoke to Immig about this issue some time back. Centrelink recognizes just 1 wife and even if he has children by a 2nd, and while they can be brought to Australia as his offspring.. the mother cannot and no application for her to come here is available until they are 18 yrs old.

Robert.. the key point you are missing here.. is that what Jesus taught is not a LAW in the civil sense... it is an 'ethic' of the Kingdom of God.. not the kingdom of man.. that ideal certainly applies in principle in various church denominations, but I know of none which try to use Christs teaching as a means of holding a marriage together for 'malicious' purposes....which is the essense of the article in focus. To be sure, Churches would encourage people to put committment above squabbles and unless adultery is involved there is no 'quick fix' for a broken relationship.

Even the fix there, by our Lords literal words, are a huge challenge for most people. I'd say it's between them and He.

Austin Powerless, taxpayers underwrite every religion in Australia. Religions are tax exempt. This sort of fraud in religion, including corporate relationships, happens all the time.

Ironically it's the systems own intolerance and bigotry (intermingled with some ideologies) that has created the situation.

PC: "the key point you are missing here.. is that what Jesus taught is not a LAW in the civil sense... it is an 'ethic' of the Kingdom of God"

The same is true of the religious marriages you are talking about. Australian law *does* override them — the aggrieved party is still free to marry again in a civil ceremony after obtaining his or her civil divorce. If they don't like the constraints their religion puts around their marriage, then they should leave their religion. Those constraints have nothing to do with their legal rights as Australian citizens to marry or divorce.

Obviously this is more difficult in practice than it is in theory. Hopefully, other former Muslims, Jews and Christians can support those who want to leave their religion.

Sure, religion blows. But that's no reason to make it against the law.

Easy Times and Austin Powerless,
I saw that TV show and it is a bit of a beat up as the bloke can only marry one person at a time legally, He may marry another in a religous cermony but not legally. Therefore I see it as no different to any other bloke with a mistress. She may have kids by him and get all the social security a single mum is entitled to. Some non muslim blokes do that you know! A bloke could have half a dozen mistresses and they all could get single mothers benefits.

Why anyone would want more than one wife at a time escapes me. Especially in our society.

Polycarp,
Thanks for explaining that to me as it seems my initail interpurtation of the marriage section was not quite correct.