http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060602...RpBHNlYwM3NTc-

A woman who fell in love with a snake has reportedly married the reptile at a traditional Hindu wedding celebrated by 2,000 guests in India's Orissa state.

Bimbala Das wore a silk saree for the ceremony Wednesday at Atala village near the Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar.

Priests chanted mantras to seal the union, but the snake failed to come out of a nearby ant hill where it lives, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said.

A brass replica snake stood in for the hesitant groom.

"Though snakes cannot speak nor understand, we communicate in a peculiar way," Das, 30, told the agency.

"Whenever I put milk near the ant hill where the cobra lives, it always comes out to drink.

"I always get to see it every time I go near the ant hill. It has never harmed me," she added.

Villagers welcomed the wedding in the belief it would bring good fortune and laid on a feast for the big day.

Snakes and particularly the King Cobra are venerated in India as religious symbols worn by Lord Shiva, the god of destruction.

Das, from a lower caste, converted to the animal-loving vegetarian Vaishnav sect whose local elders gave her permission to marry the cobra, the world's largest venomous snake that can grow up to five metres.

"I am happy," said her mother Dyuti Bhoi, who has two other daughters and two sons to marry off.

"Bimbala was ill," Bhoi told local OTV channel. "We had no money to treat her. Then she started offering milk to the snake ... she was cured. That made her fall in love."

Das has moved into a hut built close to the ant hill since the wedding.


In all fairness it is India, but still once traditional Western ideals fall this isn't such a impossibility here. Comment Questions? Perhaps something a bit original instead of the libertine's saying how "She can do what she wants." and "Blah Blah Blah... pushing your morality on her is wrong blah blah blah." And please for the Religious Right TM don't quote scripture. John 4:12 has no bearing on the atheist heathens around here so lets try to use some actually reasoning.

__________________
Nobody with open eyes can any longer doubt that the danger to personal freedom comes chiefly from the left. - F.A. Hayek

Where have all the Conservatives Gone?

There is always hope, as long as one can think.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.- Thomas Jefferson

Ok that now is at top of my list as silliest post I ever read on any bulletin board.

__________________
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

Sure it could happen here if marriage is redeifned by one group another group will demand it be redefined for them and to top it all off the original redefining will make the definition of marriage open to being purely subjective allowing anyone if they work it right to marry anything...even a snake.

__________________
Nobody with open eyes can any longer doubt that the danger to personal freedom comes chiefly from the left. - F.A. Hayek

Where have all the Conservatives Gone?

There is always hope, as long as one can think.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.- Thomas Jefferson

Well if you consider marriage to a snake as being signficant, then I am glad you aren't a liberal.

__________________
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

LOL, your complete incompetence is amazing even for a liberal. The reason I posted this, was that I always hear the libertines (and some liberals) say when beastality is brought up that it can never happen and never has happened anywhere, and gay marriage has nothing to do with it. You seem unable to grasp the concept or the argument, the fact I had to explain it to you is sort of pathetic. But hey I'm glad your a liberal, makes it easy for me

__________________
Nobody with open eyes can any longer doubt that the danger to personal freedom comes chiefly from the left. - F.A. Hayek

Where have all the Conservatives Gone?

There is always hope, as long as one can think.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.- Thomas Jefferson

To reprise: If you think marriage to a snake is a signficant topic... than I am glad you are a conservative.

__________________
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

Legal marriage with animals could never happen because an animal cannot agree to marriage, nor do animals require all of the needs answered by legalized marriage.

The story you posted has nothing to do with bestiality. The story was about a woman who married a snake (a woman who was part of an 'animal-loving vegetarian sect') nothing else.

As to what a woman in a sect living in rural India has to do with gay marriage is beyond me. Homosexuals adults are deemed to be able to consent, animals and children are not. A change in that law could lead to marriages such as the one in the story, not legalising homosexual marriage.

__________________
It's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation... - Jim Morrison

It would appear that the real reason for your posting this oddity is to try to attract a comment from someone with whom you disagree.
Congratulations on your success.