It's not just next of kin I'm concerned with, it's medical visitstion/decision making that would otherwise have to be proactively dealt with, and even then, can fall through if it's not "as normal."

Same with power of attorney/beneficiary. A huge amount of people don't deal with this until its too late, and it's significantly more difficult to legally navigate.

Even in the u.s., most services are available for non-married couples, it's just an amount of hoops to hop through that don't make sense to deal with

It's not just murica, the uk and eu gives a swath of legal/beneficiary and medical benefits for being married. Also, the uk does have a "married couples allowance" but it recently allows for unmarried partners as well.

But, regardless the u.s. situation is enough

Is that really your argument?

Marriage isn't strictly a religious construct, and hasn't been since tax/medical/legal benefits were introduced for married couples/married couples with children.

If someone was willing to have a child with me, but unwilling to get married while subject to a government that provides huge amount of legal benefits for being married, I'd run like hell.

To be clear, I am 200% opposed to organized religion, and its affect on the general population. That has nothing to do with getting "married" in the eyes of the gov't - you can get married in a courtroom with no ceremony/religion involved.

Because we've created an environment where creatives require outside financing they are beholden to; publicly traded companies will never treat creators consistently

Yea.. like I usually am never In a "I'm bored, I'm gonna watch the lotr trilogy!" mood - it's almost always a "I have a 102 degree fever, I'm barely coherent, PUT MAH SHOW ON"

The extended version adds like 2 hours+ of screen time, with a lot of "necessary" content to fully understand the story. Why is it like this? Because even with 11 hours, it's still missing a lot of critical info from the books, it's the best they could do

So...yea. You're missing a lot of plot

I disagree here. I love reading, I hate the lotr books, I love the trilogy (but really only the extended versions).

I like the lotr trilogy for the same reason I like the og star wars trilogy - the characters have iconic voices/presences with amazing music composition that lend to background noise/comfort watching. I think they are fantastic movies, for a bunch of reasons (I still think they are respectively the best fantasy/sci-fi fi movie trilogy to be released) but I think their strength is their "audio"

That being said - if it's not something you grew up with, it ain't gonna hit the same

I usually just put my snacks in a cup

Even so, wouldn't it be congress that would introduce new legislation/has the power to address issues?

Eh, I'd argue out strength, at least with more secular/reform jews, is our ability to assimilate.

The orthodox jews, sure, they stick to themselves and their ways.

But a vast majority of jews are not orthodox.

Most jews you see, you wouldn't know. Most of us don't wear a yarmulke (except maybe in synagogue), a tallit, etc.

In fact, the attire you probably think of most (black hat, payos, black coat/pants) kind of has the "opposite" origins of what you'd expect. The outfit emulates what was popular in eastern Europe in the early 19th century, it was literally adopted by Jewish communities at the time to fit in better, or assimilate.

For whatever reason, the orthodox seemed to have twisted the purpose of the attire, and now use it to stand out/differentiate themselves. There's nothing, religiously, that requires/asks of it.

A good amount of my family is orthodox, and a good amount of them follow the law, rather than tradition - as to say they wear a head covering (ball cap) and wear a tallit under their clothes mostly, just with the 13 tassels hanging out near their waist. Anything further is their own choice, has nothing to do with God, its them wanting to stand out.

I mean, to be fair, we've explicitly known chemicals like pfos/pfas are both toxic and invasive (as to say, easily travels through surface to reach watertable) since the 50's/60's we just didn't give a shit