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Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Why Wait Till 2020, Let's Ask For An Annulment Of The Election

OK, so you're really drunk when you get married, and you really didn't know what you were doing and you married someone you didn't even know the person you married.   If you're Catholic, you can get an annulment.

So I was thinking the same should hold true for an election.  So I looked up the grounds for an annulment of a marriage in the Catholic church.  We could incorporate some of these as part of a constitutional amendment.

For example, the document I found starts like this:
Grounds for Marriage Annulment in the Catholic Church  There are very well defined canonical grounds for Marriage Annulment. Once these have been established marriage Annulment can proceed. It is important to understand the grounds for Marriage Annulment before making application, and if in doubt you should consult your local priest.
So what are some of the grounds that might apply here?
  • Insufficient use of reason (Canon 1095, 10)
  • Grave lack of discretionary judgment concerning essential matrimonial [presidential] rights and duties (Canon 1095, 20)
  • Psychic-natured incapacity to assume marital [presidential] obligations (Canon 1095, 30)
  • Ignorance about the nature of marriage [presidency] (Canon 1096, sec. 1)
  • Error about a quality of a person (Canon 1097, sec. 2)
  • Fear (1103)
I think most of my readers can figure out the logic one could use to argue most of these.  But there's one more that might need a little clarification because the metaphor is not perfect.  While the Catholics talk about marriage and then "you or your spouse", we're talking about the 'election' in part and the 'presidency' in part.  And the 'you' here is the 'voters' and the 'new president' is the spouse.  But after the election, we have to talk about the nature of the presidency.  

With that in mind, I offer one more ground for an annulment:

  • Willful exclusion of marital [presidential] fidelity (Canon 1101, 12)
My thinking here is that the president thought he could take on the presidency and still keep his old partner (the Trump businesses).  I think that qualifies as willful exclusion of presidential fidelity.  He's just put his businesses in his sons' houses where he can sneak a visit any time he goes over for dinner.  

3 comments:

  1. You don't have to be Catholic to get an annulment. Civil law allows it if:

    - unsound mind--one spouse lacked the ability to give consent due to a mental impairment or the influence of drugs or alcohol

    - force or coercion--one spouse was coerced into the marriage, by force or threat of force

    - fraud--one spouse makes false statements, and the other spouse agrees to marry based on a belief that the statements were true, or

    - a physical impairment, including sexual impotence, which prevents the couple from consummating the marriage.

    I go for reason #3. you think we could come up with any false statements?????

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dreampt last night that Obama was president again, the Republicans asking him to come back.
    They fired Trump in his madness and admitted complete defeat trying to run a government where their chief hired incompetents and fired or accepted the resignation anyone who knows anything.
    The world sighed in relief.

    Annulment is even better: get rid of all those horrific Cabinet appointments as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The alliances are fraying... This morning, I woke to find a family relation had 'defriended' and blocked me from her FB. I had replied yesterday to a particularly ugly news post she made on patriotism being embedded in one's national loyalties.

    I replied to her that her son-in-law's uncle (me) was a dual national living in Britain, and quite happy about it all -- being able to reconcile two loyalities.

    That was enough for her, evidently. She blocked our connection. This isn't going well, Steve. The dialogue we are committed to holding is coming undone, one person at a time.

    ReplyDelete

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