Washington's King County voids marriage license between a person and a corporation

Jeff sez, "King County has voided the license it issued Tuesday between Corporate Person, a Washington State Corporation, and Ms. Angela Marie Vogel: 'Marriage is a civil contract between a male and a female who have each attained the age of eighteen years, and who are otherwise capable.'"

The Wedding of Corporate Person to Angela Marie Vogel (Thanks, Jeff!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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tylerkaraszewski

Wait, they voided it on grounds that the corporation doesn’t meet the gender requirements of an anti-gay-marriage rule?
- ldobe
  
  Washington State (currently) has an “Everything But Marriage” deal (but has passed a law that legalizes gay marriage, but is not in effect due to a referendum and ballot vote). Maybe if she tried a civil union she wouldn’t have had the license voided so quickly.
  - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
    
    She obviously should have picked a more virile corporate partner.
    
    Perhaps two birds could be killed with one stone… For too long, sperm banks have been fathering hundreds, even thousands, of children out of wedlock with women chosen almost indiscriminately, refusing to support, or even acknowledge, their endless crop of bastards. In the interests of family values, I think we can all agree that it would strengthen the institution of marriage in this great nation, and help reverse our moral decline, if such slutty corporate persons were to settle down and get married.
- billstewart
  
  No, no, the problem was with Mergers and Acquisition Laws – Corporate Person was this cute little Subchapter S, and Ms. Vogel was a Sole Proprietor, and you just can’t mix the two types?
  
  Really now, if Corporations are People Too, my friends, then aren’t Acquisitions forbidden by the 13th Amendment ban on slavery? And aren’t too many mergers tantamount to Cannibalism? I’m sorry, we just can’t have that sort of thing going on in our community! It’s a threat to the sanctity of Partnerships everywhere!
http://www.creaturesoflight.com dagfooyo

Could this be used as a precedent that corporations aren’t people? *crosses fingers*
- pKp
  
  It could also mean they’re considered female.
  Or, in a parallel universe, that being genderless is actually an option. That’d be nice.
- retepslluerb
  
  I bet if you drafted corporations and send them to $WHATEVER_COUNTRY_THE_USA_LIBERATES_NEXT, they’d fight that status.
  - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
    
    Only because they pay actual military substantially less than they pay contractors…
    
    As long as Uncle Sam is paying well enough, corporate persons are so patriotic it hurts(their expendable employees, that is) about sending people into assorted dusty hellholes.
chellberty

Now she needs to take it all the way to the supreme court to start up a national discussion on corporate personhood? PLZ
- Charles-A Rovira
  
  Lets start a KickStarter project to fund this.
  
  We need to set up a US corporation, get them a willing board of governors, get it to marry somebody. and then … hilarity ensues.
  
  This way it could go right up to the SCotUS without bankrupting anybody…
  
  If they’re going to uphold “Citizens United” then I want
  • the corporation to apply for food stamps, proving something about the corporate welfare state, and then
  • the corporation to apply for military service. (Wait until it deserts and turns state secrets over to the enemy…)
  - chellberty
    
    Lets make this happen. Who can we get on this? Wolfpac? Move to Amend?
    http://www.wolf-pac.com/ http://movetoamend.org/
  - billstewart
    
    Sorry, your corporation can’t join the military, because it’s not 18 years old yet.
    
    And if it wants food stamps, it’s probably going to have to show Photo ID.
Matthew Stone

I know the sexual revolutions that have been sweeping the world for decades have changed a lot about civil unions, but could we please draw a line and have a rule/law that humans can only marry their own species? That’s sensible, right? No pets, no Love Plus DS games, and no amorphous corporations; the hairless pink monkeys of the planet should stick with each other.
- stillcantfightthedite
  
  What about us robosexuals???
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIY5XzaVmdE
  - gijoel
    
    It’s Adam and Eve. Not Adam and R86524!
    - ImmutableMichael
      
      We’re talking about lots of stuff.
    - TWX
      
      I donno, it worked for Logan 5, Jessica 6, THX1138, Tasha Yar and Data, a whole slew of others…
      - edkedz
        
        Only one of those is a robot/android. Logan & Jessica were both just human, as was THX.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1570497338 Matt Symonds
    
    Appliantologists… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Token_of_My_Extreme
- Andrew Singleton
  
  What about that guy in Knoxville that wanted to marry his car?
  - kP
    
    Has he considered the Mercury Mistress?
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5sOCEUpGZI
- flan59
  
  C’mon man! Corporations are people too! It’s just that they are gender nuetral so it screws with the whole man and woman thing, but as Romney said, corporations ARE people, right?
Will Traxler

Alright now we just need a man to try and marry that same corporation, if they void it again, then either they aren’t people, or the US needs to make some choices about gender laws, which I imagine might be good for the Transgendered community.
- digi_owl
  
  I better get that popcorn machine going.
- Charles-A Rovira
  
  But, but Mitttenz said “Corporation iz peeple, didn’t he? Didn’t he?
  
  Poor corporation must get awful lonely on cold winter nights, after all there’s no such thing as global warming now is there?
  
  They shouldn’t discriminate and let corporations, and homosexuals, marry.
theophrastvs

Some of us have witnessed this person at city council meetings extolling the virtue of various buildings she has wed. I believe she is most likely a harmless nut-case. The trouble is she furnishes the far right bible-thumpers with: “see? we told you what would happen to marriage if you allowed gay marriage” (…as we recently have in Washington state …and none too soon… yet, of course, being challenged -alas-)
- robuluz
  
  They don’t need furnishing. They come fully furnished.
- edkedz
  
  The trouble is that those far-right bible-thumpers even exist.
  You can’t restrict your behaviour according to how they might react: fuck people like that.
  - http://bhtooefr.org/ Eric Rucker
    
    Unless they number highly enough that they have political power. Then you have to deal with them.
http://twitter.com/dantobias dantobias

If the marriage-equality law passed by the Washington legislature survives the coming referendum and goes in effect at the end of the year, then maybe they can try this stunt again.
Sean Lally

Jail bait!
- Andrew Singleton
  
  Not sure how but I keep envisioning the joke here about the building said corporation built being a jail.
Shinkuhadoken

Obviously the problem was that the corporation wasn’t 18 years of age, yet.
- tsts
  
  In that case, can she adopt it and claim it as a dependent?
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOOM27DBLMZQIJVK4BQLE7K5YA Nagurski
  
  If she really loves the corporation she’ll wait for it until it turns 18 and has resolved its gender issues.
chiffed

Rev. Rich Lang www.utemple.org is seriously reform-minded fella. This is, in essence, Occupy Matrimony. Good stuff.
malindrome

They say that 50% of all corporate mergers end in divorce …
- MB44
  
  But what about the subsidiaries? They have to be the main concern here!
  - Henry Pootel
    
    Yes, please won’t someone think of the subsidiaries?
    - ImmutableMichael
      
      Was enjoying your comment before realizing the awesomeness of your name.
      - Ipo
        
        You like very clean piglets?
      - ImmutableMichael
        
        @lpo – three children later, I know these backwards. And the Stephen Fry, Judy Dench et al audiobooks are also perfect for long drives.
Evan Hunt

Clearly this is evidence that we need a more business-friendly marriage law. These pesky regulations that define marriage as only being between a man and a woman are significantly impacting the tax benefits available to her and her corporate finace, and thus limiting their ability to create jobs. I trust all Republicans will join me now in calling for nationwide marriage deregulation, wiping these intrusive laws off the books so that love and capitalism can flourish.
jhertzli

Does this mean I can’t marry Valentina?
- ImmutableMichael
  
  Not even if she becomes Valentina Pty Ltd.
http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

Yes, yes, all very well’n'all that, but hang on a minute - who are otherwise capable? What the hell does that mean? That’s how a law, an actual law, legalese, y’know – those lumps of verbal meant to condition how we behave – that’s how it ends? That piece of vague meaningless predicateless anything-goes nonsense?

You’re in bigger trouble than you think.
- Greggem
  
  RCW 26.04.020
  (1) Marriages in the following cases are prohibited:
       (a) When either party thereto has a wife or husband living at the time of such marriage;
  
  (b) When the husband and wife are nearer of kin to each other than
  second cousins, whether of the whole or half blood computing by the
  rules of the civil law; or
       (c) When the parties are persons other than a male and a female.
  
  So I guess that (1)(c) would apply to prohibit this marriage. Interestingly, it appears that it is going to be repealed. I believe the bill has already been passed, but hasn’t gone into effect yet.
  - billstewart
    
    (1)(b) might be a problem also. Is she one of the stockholders of the corporation? That could be incestuous.
    
    (Also, chances are that Corporate Person wasn’t 18 years old yet, so it was still a minor.)
    
    (Hmmm, are corporations that aren’t 18 yet allowed to make binding contracts? There are some corporations that really need to grow up!)
- Mantissa128
  
  I think it means the corporation would have to be… fully functional.
  
  Edit: audio is NSFW, albeit hilarious.
  - http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
    
    Yup. Exactly what I was concerned about. Cf also Fritz Weaver + Julie Christie in Demon Seed – the offspring of corporation plus human if ever there was.
    - Mantissa128
      
      Nice reference! I was thinking about that movie just the other day. Poor guy just wanted out of that box though, can’t blame him/her.
Ike Dahlinger

I wonder if they got to consummate the marriage…
http://openid.aliz.es/Bros Bros

Where’s your first year logic. A corporation is neither male nor female, therefore there can be no marriage between a corporation and a male or female.

Also, was that corporation even old enough? Robbing the cradle, tsk tsk.
kP

Bad news for Rez & Rei Toei
- Lupus_Yonderboy
  
  Maybe on the age front but Rei Toei definitely identifies as female so at least that’s not icky, right? I mean, it’s not like Rez wanted to marry Wintermute or anything that might go against traditional values.
  - kP
    
    I was wondering when Wintermute would be getting involved, you know, to balance things out.