Gotcha gotcha. No worries! I think you’re a consistently good-faith poster. I was honestly confused at that one sentence and even wondered if you just missed a word, I should have asked.
How does the government know that two cohabitating men or women are in a “romantic” relationship? Since romance usually takes place behind closed doors, that would be fairly diffficult to prove.
I mean, the government doesn’t hunt them down to present them with rings or anything. I’ve just heard of cases where people find out they’ve accidentally cohabitated long enough that they’ve fallen into the legal category of “common law married”. And I mean, our tax forms (which reflect our addresses) do ask us questions about our relationship status and whether we’re in a ‘conjugal relationship’ with someone we share housing with even if they’re not a ‘spouse’ (the instructions describe the type of scenario involved and ask you to check the ‘common law’ box if it applies to you), so maybe some background process keeps track? If two different people fill out two different tax returns stating they’re cohabiting with a conjugal partner, and the address is the same… I presume that’s how the government knows.
Can I ask where this is (as vague as possible to protect your privacy)? Because 99% of the time I’ve head this claim it turns out to be a misunderstanding. Usually there’s a lot more you have to do to end up in this scenario and most importantly it involves the couple presenting themselves as married.
Maybe they changed the language? I thought it used to be called common law marriage, as part of legal precedent. But terms can change.
and if it’s called something different now, maybe they changed it to what they thought might seem more palatable to more people, for whatever reason.)They seem to be related but different as some provinces have a form of common law marriage it looks like. It’s often distinct from both common law relationships and formalized marriages.Could perfectly well be that I’m mistaken though. (… but I don’t think I am; I do think the government’s original term was common law marriage
Oh interesting. Well, neither applies to me right now so I’ll take your word for it and not investigate further at the moment. To be honest I don’t even know my own province’s position. I assumed what I found on the Revenue Agency website applied federally across all provinces, so you already have more precise info than I do.
Thou shalt not lie.
He’s presumably concerned that attending is going to be endorsing/approving of this relationship, which is something that he doesn’t feel would be right.
He isnt happy for him, he is mourning for him. The friend is embracing and celebrating an act of grave sin. Wishing him the best would entail encouraging him to conversion. Attendance would signal support for said act, even if only because “it makes him happy.”
It might also show the friend the loving, friendly, charitable side of Christianity. While I doubt it in and of itself would cause the friend to convert, I don’t see it any more likely that not attending would do so either.
We should bear in mind that this was only expressed as OP’s concern and no specific threat or reason for the concern was mentioned. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t warranted but it does mean we only have one side of the story there. Ironically, OP seemed concerned about being ‘outed’.
No. Charity without truth makes not love or friendship. That is Christianity, not some worldly politically-correct imitation.
I’ll leave the what-ifs and the things that are beyond our control to the Lord.