What do you mean, why yes? For the same reason people get a license through the Licensing Office: that’s the government agency responsible for it. You can also get a European license and ask for it to be recognized in Israel (at least with sailing licenses that’s possible), but there’s usually no reason to do that. It’s simply a government body like any other. I haven’t heard of people conducting an internal audit of government bodies before using their services.

Do you really not understand the difference? I find that hard to believe. A license not issued through the Licensing Office endangers others. A wedding through the Rabbinate is about providing jobs for the Deri and Yosef families. Nothing more.
As far as I’m concerned, there is no obligation whatsoever to marry through them even if it were a body run gloriously. But given how it is run now, there is a positive reason not to marry through it.

I was talking about a completely legal license, not something that endangers people (I gave an example from the world of sailing, where licenses issued in Europe are recognized in Israel).

If there is a halakhic obligation, that’s a separate question. What I’m claiming is that this attention is unnecessary. A person wants to get married in Israel, so he goes to the place that handles it. Someone who wants to be a CPA goes to the Council of Certified Public Accountants and takes exams; he doesn’t first check whether they conduct themselves properly and whether it’s possible to get a license in Cyprus and work here.

There’s just one problem: the place that handles this doesn’t handle what you want, but forces you to do things it wants without justification.
If I came to the conclusion that the Licensing Office was making money off me for the benefit of one crime family or another, dictating things to me against my conscience, and I had an alternative way to get a license, I would absolutely do that.

And by the way, I wasn’t talking about a halakhic obligation but a legal and moral one. Halakhically, these corrupt people certainly have no standing.

And by the way, I wasn’t talking about a halakhic obligation but a legal and moral one. Halakhically, these corrupt people certainly have no standing.

What does “halakhically, these corrupt people have no standing” mean? Are all the wedding officiants employed by the Rabbinate, Haredi and knitted-kippah alike, corrupt? Also, since when is an accusation of corruption grounds for invalidating rabbinic ordination?

Well, apparently a short lesson in reading comprehension is needed. First, the fact that I called them corrupt does not mean that because of that they have no authority. I explained this explicitly above, if you had bothered to read before responding. Second, the corrupt party here is the Chief Rabbinate as an institution. That does not mean every person there is corrupt. And third, I wrote that the Chief Rabbinate as an institution has no halakhic authority in any sense whatsoever. It is a bureaucratic institution of the state. That does not mean that marriages performed through it and by its people are invalid. It means that halakhically one is not required to go through it.
Even when you’re offended and angry, it’s worth first reading, thinking, and only then responding.

Let’s take this argument: “If I came to the conclusion that the Licensing Office was making money off me for the benefit of one crime family or another, dictating things to me against my conscience, and I had an alternative way to get a license, I would absolutely do that.” How do we know that the Chief Rabbinate is making money off us and channeling money to the Deri and Yosef families? I definitely agree with the claim that there is nepotism in the Rabbinate (not necessarily in the direction of the extended Yosef family, but as part of a general tendency to appoint relatives and cronies), but still, as long as this is a bureaucratic body, it transfers its funds to the state treasury.

So here’s one more addition to the previous lesson: when associates are appointed to this body and receive fat salaries from the state treasury, and when within its framework they work to promote the family kashrut organization and the family party, that means our money is being used for the benefit of the crime families. They don’t need to embezzle for that to be true (though I wouldn’t rule out more blatant embezzlement either).