Me and Alternative Lifestyles...

[jbsegal]

So, I am now a fully appointed and sworn Justice Of The Peace for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

I'm thinking of actually putting together a webpage to advertise this fact.

I'm thinking of noting that I'm specifically alternative-lifestyle friendly.

This started me wondering: What alternative lifestyles am I NOT friendly to. For example: Pedophiliac 'relationships' are bad. Age play relationships are fine.

Can anyone else name alternative lifestyles they think I might not be ok with?

Comments

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Most fundamentalist religious sects which practice any form of hate-based doctrine, or that tend to deny full access to learning opportunities for their children.

That'd be my guess.

[squibbon.livejournal.com]

Bestiality and necrophillia come to mind.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Wacko fundie-Mormon-style polygamy?

[missionista.livejournal.com]

Lots and lots of drug usage? Use of certain types of drugs?

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I would guess things that obviously break the law, such as marrying two people where you know at least one of them is already legally married to another person. Or parent/child wedding, or other close blood relative wedding. Or Marrying people where one is under a certain age, even if they are both consenting and have parental permission.

But if 2 fundies came to you and asked you to marry them, I don't think you'd object. Perhaps if they wanted you to do something weird, like pretend you're a priest or cut your hair or something, you might object.

Would you be OK with marrying 2 people where one is obviously getting married for the sole purpose of getting around US immigration laws? What if one person was a terrorist? What if someone told you that you HAD to marry them or else they'd kill/harm you or kill/harm your friends/family if you don't perform the ceremony? (Would that be a legal marriage?)

[xeger.livejournal.com]

Hm. I'm thinking "any relationship which is non-consensually degrading and/or consistantly degrading". I suspect that I don't need to offer specifics.

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

I'm curious: what constitutes "age-play" in your mind?


As to alternatives: how do you feel about couples who would refuse modern medicine for their children? Basically, I think many of your objections might come from "consensual" issues, which is where I'm guessing your pedophilic objection comes in, but might also apply to next generation issues. The next generation issue is of course tricky ground socially because our society as a whole seems to dislike interference in "how we raise our kids". Or "how many kids we have". Or "whether we have kids at all". Usually with good reason (eg, eugenics), but it makes it difficult to talk about zero population growth or borderline cases of child mistreatment/brainwashing/whatever, or nasty hereditary disease issues.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Well, before I totally write off bestiality, there's at least one person I'd want to spend some time talking to.

That said, neither of those groups are going to be coming to me for weddings. :)

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

You could also advertise in some of the smaller queer/alternative local publications if you were looking to grow the opportunity.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

I (personally) have no objection to multiple marriages. I know I can't perform them.

Depending on your definition of 'close blood relative', maybe not. I have married cousins in my family and it worked out just fine for them. (Not "distant" cousins, but not 1st cousins, either...)

As for the rest of them, I don't think those count as 'alternate lifestyles'. :)

[spinrabbit.livejournal.com]

Surrendered wives. Promise-keepers.

I'm guessing any imbalanced relationships, really.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

Interesting phrasing, given that I'd call many, possibly most, battered spouse scenarios "consensually degrading". And no, I'm not against power exchange situations, I'm just pointing out that there is a huge difference between negotiated roles and actually violating/breaking someone's free will.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

I was going to say "legal ones", but then I remembered you're in the USA with lots of moralising laws still around, at least in theory.
What about "ones legal in Denmark"? I don't think Denmark has any stupid laws about what consenting adults can do. Of course that'll confuse most of your readership.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Use a rainbow-coloured parrot with piercings and leather as your mascot?

[protogeek.livejournal.com]

Those folks are likely to be pretty particular about getting married by "one of their own kind". I'm guessing they'd consider JB to be a bit... unholy.

[protogeek.livejournal.com]

What's a surrendered wife?

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

How do you get "Informed consent" from an animal? That tends to be the line I draw, and children and animls can't.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Wives who think it's swell that their husbands are Promisekeepers.

how about

[wolfdancer.livejournal.com]

not consencual bestiality? My Parrot is in love with me, and would like for me to have his eggs in a second.
And he hated my husband. snicker.
He wanted me to get in his cage with him. I told him I could not and he said, (with Pooh as a witniss) "WHY NOT?"

[lionofgod.livejournal.com]

I did see a page once-- I have no idea where I found it now-- which had several "Wiccan" marriage ceremonies to be performed between a person and a horse. Informed consent appeared to be handled by the officiant whispering in the horse's ear something like "If you don't want to be married to this person, take some action which expresses displeasure, and we won't proceed. No harm will come to you if you do not wish this to happen."

How, exactly, a horse being handled by competent horsepeople not misbehaving is interpreted as informed consent on the horse's part remains a mystery to me.

(Wiccan is in quotes because the whole ceremony smacked of the kind of witches-wear-glitter-to-be-cool-and-don't-we-all-love-cute-little-animals variety of pop culture paganism, but I don't know enough to make a really educated guess.)

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, they'd probably rather be married by Satan than JB, but that wasn't what he was asking.

[kjc007.livejournal.com]

I suspect you might object to people who wanted to get married while in a deeply altered state, unless you'd discussed the situation with them while they were sober and fully aware of what they were doing.

[redbird]

Nah, he lives in Massachusetts, which also has sane marriage laws.

[old-hedwig.livejournal.com]

I am officiating at my brother's wedding in October (in a "religious" rather than civil capacity, because in Maryland civil weddings can only be performed by full time civil servants in the courthouse, but religious officiants are entirely unregulated) I've thought about what I would do if someone else asked me to do this, and decided I don't have any set objection to any marriage that would be legal in this state (meaning I'm not worrying about some guy who wants to marry his baby brother, or his horse, or his motorcycle) but rather it would have to pass the test of "do these people have any fucking business getting married to each other at this time?" Pretty nebulous, and arrogant, but that's my position. I can't prevent anyone from getting married, but I can refuse to participate in anything that looks like a train wreck about to happen.

[spinrabbit.livejournal.com]

There's a book, "The Surrendered Wife", and a movement based on it. Major tenets are never criticise the husband or his actions (if he makes a wrong turn on the highway, don't say anything), let the husband have exclusive control of and responsibility for the finances, always look good for him. Basically the idea is that there's always conflict in a symmetrical relationship, so the way to resolve that is for the wife to short-circuit those conflicts by always taking her husband's side, in advance if possible.

Makes me go eeeeeeeew.

[protogeek.livejournal.com]

Wow. I mean, I knew those kinds of relationships existed, but the fact that it's a ... specific chosen *movement* and *lifestyle* is just nuts. At least to me it is, perhaps it works out well for them, though I have a hard time believing it could be a good thing.

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

If it's immoral for a human to have sex with an animal, because the animal can't give informed consent, then isn't it equally immoral for a human to allow an animal to have sex with another animal, because the same informed consent is lacking?

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Eh, that's not legal anyway. Even the LDS church officially condemns it.