Sod Manx marital apartheid. Get hitched in a civilised country instead

What passes for a Manx media is all of a twitter over the idea that two hotels have been licenced as wedding venues(see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/two_hotels_get_licences_to_host_marriage_ceremonies_1_4129915 ).
….and this is progress because…….?
Bottom line is that we still suffer from a system of marital apartheid on the Isle of Man.
Absolute bottom line - if you believe in magic a bloke in a dress can legally marry you in a ceremony where all sorts of flowery language and music can be (and often is) incorporated, asking his Imaginary Magic Friend to bear witness. If you’re slightly more rational you can only be legally married by a civil servant, and if you depart from the dull as ditchwater script by so much as a word it is null and void.
Why, exactly, is it an improvement that you can go through this grey charade in a hotel rather than some small town government office?
The funniest thing is that, thanks to the continued bigotry of some church leaders, the only people who now have total equality in marriage are gays and lesbians. Because they, and only they, can only be legally hitched in a civil ceremony. Following that they are free to either find a liberal priest who will bless them or to make up their own imaginative ceremony according to what they hold most dear. Religious or secular, that ceremony makes no difference, because only the civil ceremony which proceeds it is legally binding.
This is exactly the same circumstances as I experienced, years ago, for my wedding in Hungary where, like many European countries, it is a normal, common sense notion that the state presides over some token rubberstamping of your relationship to make it all legal, then you go off and do it as quietly or spectacularly as you like in a ceremony which means something special to you and those who matter most to you, even if it’s pure nonsense to everyone else.
So if you’re not gay and you’re getting married, take my advice. Sod waiting around for this third world ruritanian backwater to join the 21st century. Set a date with these guys (see http://www.humanism-scotland.org.uk/ceremonies/index.php ), then take a break in Scotland and get legally married in style – and most importantly in a ceremony that means something to YOU – in a country which doesn’t treat the huge rational majority like kids with special needs.
Just do it.
You KNOW it makes sense. You KNOW you deserve it.