I don't know about a Methodist blessing but I am pretty sure you should be able to get some kind of Christian blessing. 

I went to a Methodist church for several years and never heard of a ring blessing. 

A marriage license gives you many, many benefits, which is why people who are denied that civil right are so vocal about it, and rightly so.

In any church in the country, the priest, minister, officiant, whatever, says, 'by the power vested in me by the state of ...., I pronounce you husband and wife.'  That is, every marriage is a civil marriage, even though it may also be blessed religiously.

How you proceed depends upon you.  Churches are private clubs and do not have to honor your request for a blessing (as you know from the Catholic Church).  However, you should be able to find an officiant to conduct your wedding ceremony, which can take place anywhere, of course, from your living room to the top of a mountain to the shores of the ocean.  Most churches, including the Methodist church, will in fact marry divorced people, but a particular minister may object, in which case he will refer you to a minister without concerns about it.

If all you want is a blessing after the civil marriage, that should be no issue at all.

I'm curious about this, Hatman. Say my boyfriend and I get married in a personal ceremony with no marriage license, then walk into the local courthouse and claim we are married. Even if we didn't walk in and inform them of our marriage, our state is a common-law state so if we live together, call one another husband and wife, act as husband and wife, pool our resources, etc. in our state we are legally married. 

In this case, does the state have any less authority over us or our marriage than if we had gotten a marriage license? Or is the refusal to get a marriage license just a decision to make on principle? 

And to Tolerant Sis: if we were to go ahead with the hypothetical situation above, getting married with no license in a common-law state, would the benefits be any different than if we had received a license?

~Stalker

Jan 28, 2010 -- 11:22PM, SatanicStalker wrote:

I'm curious about this, Hatman. Say my boyfriend and I get married in a personal ceremony with no marriage license, then walk into the local courthouse and claim we are married.

Bring evidence(video of the wedding, wedding pics, guest register, the recordation of the fact in your family Bible or equivalent), "serve notice"(a legal term one should familiarize themselves with) upon them that they are to record the fact of your marriage, and if they refuse, get their name(s) just before casually mentioning that, as Recorders, their job is to RECORD, not practice law...and that malfeasance or refusal to perform the lawful duties of their office is usually grounds for dismissal, if not civil liability.  "Claim" nothing.  SHOW them the fact, and demand official recognition of what is a fait accompli by the "service of notice"...or get a hearing before a judge so that a "writ of mandamus" can COMPEL the recalcitrant knucklehead to do his(or her) JOB!

Even if we didn't walk in and inform them of our marriage, our state is a common-law state so if we live together, call one another husband and wife, act as husband and wife, pool our resources, etc. in our state we are legally married.

Not a lawyer, here, but either you have a servant government that secures the blessings of liberty to you, or you have a dictatorial, tyrannical, despotic government that tells you what you may or may not do...and the latter case is what resulted in violent overthrow once upon a time.  A bee for the bonnet of any duly-sworn public servant, eh?  But if the common law still applies in your area(i'd check that out if i were you; in most cases, you cannot find a lawfully-constituted common law court because in common law, REAL money must be used---not empty, valueless IOU nothings like the FRN's currently extant, in exchange for goods or services), then the testimony of witnesses and accompanying documentation should be more than enough to establish not only identity, but marital status. 

In this case, does the state have any less authority over us or our marriage than if we had gotten a marriage license?

Indeed, yes, if the linked articles are factual, as i believe they are---and if you also refuse to accept their "benefits" in the form of a social slavery number, etc., which is a purely voluntary system, and refuse to allow them to saddle any children of the marriage with said numbers, either---although you'll find many others trying their level best to convince you that this is not so, that one simply MUST have an SSN to be a "Good citizen" or other bullcrap du jour.  For example, children of a "licensed" marriage can be taken from any couple for just about any reason or even pretext, whereas those who are NOT so registered have a far higher standard that must be met before that kind of kidnapping would be anywhere close to being considered lawful.

Or is the refusal to get a marriage license just a decision to make on principle? 

As perhaps could be logically inferred from Madison's quote, if you neither object to an unlawful usurpation of power, nor exercise the Rights that gov't agents are sworn to secure and protect "against all enemies, foreign and domestic," courts routinely have ruled that you have voluntarily relinquished them, as in "a right not exercised is a right abandoned."

If you're interested in more detail on this and other matters related to Liberty and it's opposite, feel free to contact me via my profile, and i'll share a few things that rather correspond with the following cite i once used as my signature line:

"A truth's initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed.  It was not the world being round that agitated people, but that it wasn't flat.  When a well-packaged web of lies has been gradually sold to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous---and it's speaker, a raving lunatic."
~Dresden James.

As i'm rather disinclined to share the results of many years of research with Philistines who care nothing for Truth, but prefer a comfortable lie, instead, who seek for an "excuse not to think for those who didn't want to think anyway," who stand ready at all times to defend their most precious possession---their ignorance---i stick my neck out rarely on these public boards any longer, for even though i can stand ridicule and contempt, i don't like it.

Warmest regards-

Hatman

And to Tolerant Sis: if we were to go ahead with the hypothetical situation above, getting married with no license in a common-law state, would the benefits be any different than if we had received a license?

~Stalker

Not TS, here, but if you read the linked articles, the facts are laid out plainly; one who obtains a "license" to marry also enters into a contract.  For any contract to be lawful and binding, three elements must all be present: Offer, Acceptance, and Consideration.  In the case of the marriage "license," the "consideration" is "the right to be regulated by statute."  Don't sound just or fair to ME, but YMMV---and if you later object, too bad---unless you can prove fraud by omission of pertinent facts, which is very easy to do in most cases of "legal" marriage.  Part of those statutes are the child support statutes, the divorce statutes, the visitation statutes, and so on.  There's quite a difference, more's the pity, between "legal" and "lawful," which more Americans would do well to apprise themselves of asap.