Alasdair Watson

(Yeah, I know – posting late of Friday night is a great way to get people to ignore your post. HeNver mind.)

As per my workblog earlier, there is a case before the courts, of a lesbian charged with bigamy – of making a false statement to the registrar at a civil commitment ceremony. Because she was already married. To a man – presumably the husband she has not get divorced,

She has plead not guilty, and the case has been referred to the Crown Court. I don’t know if it’s because she’s bloody minded, or because she wants to be the test case that establishes the law on this.

Now it seems open and shut to me – we have a law that says that you cannot be married to more than one person, so yeah, it’s bigamy.

But it was pointed out to me that other people do not consider marriage and a civil commitment to be the same thing. This was something of a shock to me, because to me, they’re doing exactly the same thing: you get up in front of a crowd, you pledge your devotion, and you then get tax breaks, etc[1]. God does not enter into it. In my view, you’re as married or not in the eyes of your god as you choose to be. You might not be married in the eyes of your church, but your god is up to you. But then, while I can understand faith, and a relationship with god, the concept of belonging to a church totally and utterly eludes me. I don’t understand why you’d give a body of other humans veto on the nature of your relationship with god.

But marriage is an institution of the church, and so the two are not the same thing, in some people’s eyes. And if they’re being denied marriage, why should they worry about it when they’re pledging their civil commitment?

But on the other hand: it is surely not fair to the great mass of people in this country that a person should get two sets of the same tax break, when it is explicitly denied to most people. Surely the courts must take the view that just because the church that people choose to belong to denies them marriage, it is not incumbent on the state and the rest of the taxpayers to make up for it?

Or, alternatively, should we simply allow everyone to have both a marriage and a civil commitment? Or is that unfair to those that cannot have marriage, because their church denies it to them?

I’d be interested to hear what people feel on this one…

[1] I am quite willing to be corrected that the tax breaks differ, which would add another dimension to this…

Do you know why it’s been so bloody cold?

It’s all the bloody pagans fault. It seems as though all the pagans I know have equinox ceremonies coming up this weekend. Except that the equinox was yesterday. Just after midnight, in fact. And so the spirits, gods and monsters that attend the new season have been waiting for their ceremonies of spring, except the bloody hippies have put them all off until the weekend, as if mystically important days were something that happened only when convenient. And like any self-respecting gods whose worshippers aren’t up to scratch, they’re making the displeasure known.

Sort it out, pagans. Other people would like some spring.

I read The Law West Of Ealing Broadway, a magistrate’s blog, and I’m sure I’ve told you about it before, but I thought this one was worth a mention on it’s own:

Here’s a post about the way criminal justice cases are reported in this country. In it he links to a Sky news story about the sentence received by a man who has been convicted of murdering two young boys. The man received a 20 year minimum sentence. The “news” story is an interview with the parents, giving them lots of room to complain that it’s not enough, with soundbites about how the judge is supposed to serve the cause of justice, and has not done so. No counterbalancing voice is provided (and given that this is a Murdoch organ, one might suspect that one was not even sought).

As Bystander (the magistrate’s nom-de-blog) points out, that is exactly what the judge has done. He has weighed the man’s crime against the spectrum of possible offences, and come up with an appropriate punishment. That’s what justice is.

At what point did we acquire the idea that the victims should be allowed to suggest what justice is? When did we forget that however much our hearts might go out to them, they remain the worst possible arbiters of justice?

So my question is this: does anyone reading this think that a 20 year minimum sentence for murdering two children is unreasonably short? What sentence would you levy in the judge’s place? Why? (“Death” is, of course, out of the question. Please confine your answers to what the legal system allows.)

Via anw: The Daily Politics is running a poll to determine Britain’s favourite peace-time PM (by which they really mean ‘favourite modern PM other than Churchill’). It’s clearly turned into a two horse race between Thatcher and Attlee, and Thatcher is winning. Something must obviously be done about this at once, obviously.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/6242715.stm.

Via the same page, I stumble across this horrifying sound bite from Tony Blair: “We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world.”

Somehow a man that came out with that has got 7% of the vote, and 3rd place…

Where do you people (and obviously, I’m talking to the web monkeys in the audience here) look when you’re looking for work? What websites/fora/other means do you use to find work?

We’re getting slightly desperate for good candidates, here…

Anyone know any PHP programmers looking for work in London, junior or experienced, we’re looking for either… Any of my fellow internet miners fancy a change of job? We’re a nice, laid-back place to work, mercifully free of the usual new media bullshit and shouting.

Even if you don’t, I’d be terribly grateful if you’d spread this about. Get any interested parties to drop me a line at [myljusername] at aardvarkmedia co uk…