Can online marriages tame the culture wars?
(RNS) When Marine Sgt. Michael Ferschke met a young Japanese woman named Hotaru in Japan, it wasn’t long before he was calling his family back in Tennessee to confess he was in love. About a year later, Ferschke was deployed to Iraq; two weeks after that, Hotaru discovered she was pregnant. The two needed to find a way to get married, despite being thousands of miles apart. So the couple had a proxy marriage, a wedding for those who can’t be in the same place at the same time. The couple simply filled out paperwork, though specific requirements for proxy marriages vary by state and by country. Ferschke, 22, was killed in Iraq in 2008 without ever seeing his wife again. The couple’s unorthodox marriage has led to immigration headaches for his widow; their son, Michael Ferschke III, is nearly a year old. Still, law professors Adam Candeub and Mae Kuykendall are arguing that what worked for the Ferschkes and other couples should be able to work for anyone, gay or straight. The two Michiga
