I heard some local conservative talk show hosts in VA talking about how the government should get out of marriage, and therefore SSM should be legal. They were personally opposed to SSM on religious grounds. Some pastor called in yelling at them and they asked him what he thought about people he married in his church having to get the government’s permission first, and he eventually said he saw their point.
Yes, I’ve heard that argument before. It’s stupendously ignorant of the entire debate, but lots of people are.
The entire decades-long fight has been for same-sex civil marriage, not same-sex living together and calling it marriage because the legal relationship isn’t available. Which, as it happens, is not some novel concept; many gay couples actually have a lot of experience in doing that, what with same-sex marriage being nonexistent a decade ago and still not legal in many places.
“Look at how nice it will be! Nothing will change at all for you!” is not actually a good compromise for a group of people seeking a change.
How do you get the hospital to recognize this right? Why should they be bound by your contract?
Contracts don’t (generally) bind third parties who were not signatories to the contract. You and your significant other can make whatever contract you want, but if, for example, you are incapacitated at the hospital, the hospital staff has no knowledge of the existence or contents of that agreement, and even if they did, the front-line medical staff don’t have the legal knowledge to parse it.
Your contract with your spouse may be enforceable as to your spouse, but it doesn’t bind the hospital; they have no obligation to abide by its terms or recognize your spouse’s authority. They could turn medical decision-making over to your father’s second cousin and utterly ignore your spouse’s wishes, instructions, or authority.
HOWEVER, the legal status of marriage confers a set of rights that are enforceable; the government compels the hospital to defer to your spouse because that person is your spouse in a government-recognized marriage, and the marriage itself confers legally-recognized rights.
Indeed. Getting government out of marriage is like getting government out of power-of-attorney. Without governmental recognition and support, power-of-attorney becomes completely meaningless the instant an uncooperative third party becomes involved.
I suppose one way to get government out of marriage would be to argue that it somehow infringes on your civil rights. Good luck with that.
Well, it appears that quite the opposite is the case. California seems to let anyone marry anyone. My older son-in-law’s mother just got remarried, done by some extremely random person. My younger daughter just got married here in California. It was done by a minister after they unsuccessfully looked for someone who could speak German, with no mention of God. Then, when I was applying for a copy of her marriage license at the county office, two people got married by a clerk at a window next to the one I was at.
I got married in Pennsylvania, where a couple can marry themselves with no officiant at all.
The reason my daughter didn’t get married in Germany, where she lives, is that they do it the religious way. If you don’t get married in a church, you are only allowed to get married in a state office and are allowed only a minimal number of attendees. My new son-in-law and family are atheists also (my kids pick well!) so that wouldn’t do. Such is established religion. I think the state does a far better job.
You’re not making sense. The government is not limiting your arrangements. It’s offering people the opportunity to take advantage of government benefits through marriage.
Government is neither definition by your relationships nor forcing you into one.
Are you just tying to say that marriage should not be limited to two unrelated adults? If that’s the case, then you’re not making a “government should get out of the marriage business” argument.
They argued for state-recognized SSM. The argument was that the state shouldn’t be involved in the who-marries-whom part. If a church wants to marry a couple, the state should recognize it. If they want to just register with the state, then that’s fine too.
In fact, this thread is the first time I’ve heard “get government out of marriage” as an anti-SSM argument. I had only heard it as a reason to allow it.
Do you understand the difference between a personal relationship and a marriage? I’ll give you a hint - it’s like the difference between a friend saying “hey, I’ll give you a hand on Saturday” and your friend accepting $10,000 to work with you. The government doesn’t have any say of personal relationships. This is not rocket science - indeed, I explained it on the first page. Go back and read the thread. 40 posts is not that much.
Because numerous rights involved with the marriage contract involve third parties. Because not every Dick, Jane, and Annie should need to go through a few hundred pages of legalese before the nuptials to make sure they didn’t forget anything. Because having an overarching legal framework for marriage makes it easier for all 300 million people involved and just makes sense. It’d be like not having a standard procedure for death in lieu of a will.
There is nothing “arbitrary” about marriage. Indeed, it’s one of the most widely-recognized relationship states in the history of the world. A married couple is simply not the same thing as two individuals on their own; they have certain responsibilities and rights towards each other that are recognized. A marriage heavily implies that the couple intends to stay together for a long period of time and plan their lives around each other. This tells the government something about the couple - such as that they’re now to be treated as one household, one family unit, rather than two. That they consider each other trustworthy enough to make a myriad of decisions for each other. This is by no means arbitrary!
Then don’t get married. Simple as that. Just have your relationship. Set up those 2000 rights and privileges on your own (to whatever degree you can - many of them involve third parties), and spend a few thousand bucks on lawyer fees to get it all working. The rest of us are just going to use the rational, established government framework for its intended purpose.
Exactly, Gov’t defined marriage is an option. If you don’t want it, you can have whatever ceremony you want, and legalize it with whatever contractual language you want*, you just can’t call yourself “married” on a form that assumes Gov’t defined marriage. All of which would be identical if Gov’t got out of the marriage business entirely.
*Excepting, of course, when some State Gov’ts went insane and precluded gays from having a relationship that resembled marriage.
Oh, calm down. No one has said you’re an idiot, and the only person suggesting you were homophobic backed down from that position before you started posting to the thread.
I can just see that as a Far Side comic.
Judge: “And with the addition of the testimony of the new witness Snookums, I have hereby decided to sentence the defendant Herbert Smith to death.”
Herbert Smith: “Bad dog, Snookums!* Bad dog!*”
As a big-L, card-carrying Libertarian, I take issue with this stance. I really believe that the government should get out of marriage per se and simply recognize contracts between consenting adults for things such as property division, inheritance, etc. I don’t care whom you’re banging, as long as it’s not impinging on my rights.
I won’t say I support gay marriage, because I don’t care enough to join a picket. Get gay married if you want to, or don’t. As long as the government is already involved, though, it’s only fair to apply non-essential government recognition to anyone that wants it.
What’s more likely now is that my ambivalence is going to be attacked as homophobic or I’ll be seen as uncaring. Well, there are too many things that are more important to care about, so if this rates low on my radar, so be it. If you’re sensible and you count it under the mantra of “freedom” then you’ll see that I do support it, although I still won’t join a picket or parade.
The person you designated as your heir in your will. Lacking a will, your children. Problem solved.
This is an issue only if you decide that the spouse should be the primary heir. Happens to be true in your country, not the case in mine, where your spouse will get nothing if you die intestate.
And wanting that the spouse be the primary heir requires that you assume there is a spouse to begin with, so it’s quite a bit circular in any case. No exactly an argument for a state-sanctioned marriage.
I absolutely agree that we should rely on long-standing traditions, and maintain a state-sanctionned marriage between a man and one or several women whose guardianship is transfered from their father, in order to promote family alliances, economical support, unrestricted sexual access for men and legitimate filiation. I’m divided on the issue of whether marriages should be terminated solely by death or also by a repudiation of his wives by the husband, however.
Besides, as long as people can get a green card for their best friend, a tax break for their three polyamorous partners, a mandatory lease continuation for their surviving live-in brother, get away from inheritance taxes for whoever is the first person named on their will and so on, it’s not like marriage is creating any privilege.
It’s obvious that the absence of any significant social or cultural change during the last couple centuries argues in favour of not revisiting the status-quo.
And if you don’t have children?
So who is the primary heir for a childless person who dies intestate in your country, and why is that “better”?
In the U.S., the rules vary by state, but typically if there is a spouse and no children, the spouse gets everything; if there are children but no spouse, the kids get everything; if both spouse and child(ren), the spouse gets a third to half and the kids split the remainder; if neither spouse nor children, there’s a line of succession (parents, siblings, cousins, etc.). The law here also specifies that if there is a will passing assets to somebody else and leaving the spouse destitute and a charge upon the public, the wills does not stand.
And saying the children inherit assumes there are children to begin with, so how is that not circular?
You chose to spend your life with this special someone, but in death you have no will (or the will can’t be found or is invalidated on other grounds), so your special someone is cast out with nothing. Fair and reasonable?
You’re missing the point. Do you not think that the family unit, as it is enshrined in societies around the world, has validity? Perhaps the nuclear family is not a natural organization, but it can hardly be claimed that recognition of family units as a whole is a bad thing.
Which is funny, because I’m arguing in favor of expanding the units to which that recognition is granted. Rather extensively, in fact.
:rolleyes:
How can the nuclear family possibly NOT be a natural organization?
Well…
I’m not saying it’s better. I’m just saying there’s no requirement that a spouse should be the primary heir. You were saying that a lack of officially recognized spouse would be a huge problem if state recognized marriage didn’t exist. It isn’t. There’s no particular reason why you should have to figure out who is the main sexual or romantic partner to give him/her the money because there’s no particular reason to give it to this partner. And if you want it to happen, then you must write a will. It’s already the case over here, even though obviously marriage exists.
Basically here, it’s the other way around : lacking a will children get everything, the spouse nothing. Lacking children, the spouse inherit, then other relatives, etc… And you can’t leave your children with nothing. But you can perfectly leave your spouse destitute. There’s a standard way, frequently used, to make sure this doesn’t happen (“donation to the last living”, that leaves the survivor spouse with the usufruct, but not the property, of the assets until the end of her life. For instance, she can stay in the house, but can’t sell it).
No, because we aren’t discussing whether or not children should be recognized by the state.
It’s circular in your case because you’re saying something like : spouses must be recognized because spouses must inherit, and if there’s no spouse, how do we figure out who is the spouse?
Well, if there’s no state-recognized spouse, then obviously you don’t have to figure out anything, your blood relatives inherit unless you write a will. Which would be mostly the same as what happens over here already, so obviously not a problem.
French law seems to think it is. You might disagree, but that’s not the issue. The point is that a society can function even when your lifelong partner isn’t your heir. if this person is important to you, and you’re concerned about her future, then you write a will. Same as you would do for your best friend, your destitute mother, the nearby animal shelter, etc…
And of course, your spouse isn’t necessarily a loved lifelong partner, and you might not be married with your loved lifelong partner already. Plenty of people never marry nowadays, marriages are dissolved at the blink of an eye, etc… while marriage laws are still mostly based on different assumptions : mostly everybody is married with someone, this marriage lasts until the death of either, if the breadwiner husband dies, the stay at home wife is left destitute, etc…
Marriage just isn’t nearly as fundamental as it used to be, and if the institution was to be abolished tomorrow, it wouldn’t cause a societal collapse. Plenty of people already do without (I believe it’s much more common over here for long-term partners not to marry than it is in the USA), others would do the same. I see no massive problems forthcoming.