The Government and Marriage.

[Blaster_Master]

Marriage, as it exists today, has both civil and religious aspects to it, but I don’t understand why that has to make gay marraige a complicated issue. I have atheist friends who are married and couldn’t care less what religious implications that might have. Similarly, if/when I get married, while the civil stuff may be nice, I’d be doing it as part of my beliefs with or without regard to whether or not I actually got that civil stuff that goes along with it.

So, for a while, I sort of figured, wouldn’t it be nice if government just got out of it completely, but really, marriage as a civil institution is basically just a common type of contract between two people. Sure, we can change the name of the civil aspects of marraige to, say, civil union, but what purpose does that really serve? People who have a civil union in that case would commonly just call themselves and be called married. Once all the gay and straight legal contracts all have the same name, it really doesn’t matter if they’re all called civil unions, marriages or something else. So, rather than taking all of the straight married couples and telling them they’re now legally called civil unions, just let the legal contract stay called being married and let any two consenting adults, straight, gay, or even just two people who aren’t romantically involved but may have other reasons, just enter the contract?

And for the religious aspect, who cares? I’m religious, but as far as I’m concerned, the marriage between two other people is between them and their faith. So, if someone is from a church that doesn’t recognize gay marriage from a religious aspect, they don’t have to. All that church has to realize is that, legally, those two people have a certain set of rights, and if they don’t want to bless it with whatever sacriments they might, they shouldn’t. But then, how often are gay couples seeking the sacriment from a denomination that would so thoroughly reject them? It seems like a solution in search of a problem.

So, just have that legal standardized contract set up, let any two consenting adults enter it, the religious can argue about it’s spiritual significance without any regard to the legal rights the contract may or may not give, and let’s move on to another issue.

[suranyi]

@MichaelEmouse

I am using the fact that plenty of people manage quite fine without being recognized as married as evidence that no sky will fall on our heads if we don’t have gov’t marriage. There seems to be an underlying assumption that marriage and family are synonyms which is false. Please show me the anarchy and the large amount of anger and violence linked to this in Quebec and Iceland.

Manda, the analogy you give is an improper one. A proper analogy would be a society where the majority of children and their adult caretakers are not recognized as having a parent/child relationship. That would pose major problems.

You want to talk about the necessity of gov’t marriage, do that and stop muddying the waters with the parent/child relationship.

The people who need government-recognized marriage are the ones who get married. Obviously the ones who don’t get married feel that they don’t need it. But just because a lot of people get by fine without it doesn’t mean that everybody would be fine without it.

In other words: There’s a difference between a society in which most people don’t get married, and a society in which nobody is allowed to get married.

[Acsenray]

@Jim_B

As many of you may already know, I support gay civil unions, reasonning they can have all the rights and privileges so-called married couples do. This has led some of you to believe that means I am against gay marriage. Actually, I think I am against government involvement in marriage period.

Think about it. Why do we need the government involved in a religious ceremony? I was baptized into the RC Church when I was still an infant. The government wasn’t notified of that. No special certificate was issued by my state when this event occurred. So why do we need government involvement in the marriage trade? As I said, if there is any need to solemnize a union (like insurance rights or hospital visitation rights), it can be done with a civil union for all, I think.

In most of europe (except the UK), the religious marriage and the civil union ceremonies are separate. You can conceiveably, then, just get a civil union, without a religious one. Why can’t we have that here?

(Actually, my views [for this issue at least] are very much like that of the Libertarian party, if any of you need a further point of reference.)

What do the rest of you think:)?

My marriage has nothing to do with a religious ceremony. It’s a civil status. So I want the government involved in creating my marriage. I want nothing to do with a civil union.

[Voyager]

@suranyi

The people who need government-recognized marriage are the ones who get married. Obviously the ones who don’t get married feel that they don’t need it. But just because a lot of people get by fine without it doesn’t mean that everybody would be fine without it.

Except for that set of people who don’t get married because they are not allowed to, but have more or less the rights and privileges of people who can get married but don’t choose to. That the former set wants to be allowed to marry shows that there is a difference, and that they don’t fee they are fine without it. Which I think proves your point even better.

[MandaJo]

@MichaelEmouse

I am using the fact that plenty of people manage quite fine without being recognized as married as evidence that no sky will fall on our heads if we don’t have gov’t marriage. There seems to be an underlying assumption that marriage and family are synonyms which is false. Please show me the anarchy and the large amount of anger and violence linked to this in Quebec and Iceland.

Manda, the analogy you give is an improper one. A proper analogy would be a society where the majority of children and their adult caretakers are not recognized as having a parent/child relationship. That would pose major problems.

You want to talk about the necessity of gov’t marriage, do that and stop muddying the waters with the parent/child relationship.

Why is it an improper analogy? If it’s right and proper that the law recognize that there is something special about one sort of family relationship, why do you think it right and proper that they willfully ignore another type of family relationship?

[BunnyTVS]

@Jim_B

Think about it. Why do we need the government involved in a religious ceremony?

What if you’re from different religions? Do you have to get married in both?

What if one, or both, of you is an atheist? No marriage for the hellbound?

What if you’re religion allows, or even requires, marriage to an animal? Still think the government has no say?

[WillFarnaby]

Marriage existed years before there was a government. It isn’t a civil institution. It has a civil component only because of freedom of religion. There are too many possible definitions among the various religions and sects so the state intervened to make sure everyone would recognize each others marriages. Also, it came in handy when they started taxing folks.

State intervention isnt needed if there is one overwhelmingly dominant religion because everyone recognizes each others marriages when they’re all done by the same institution.

As long as the state determines property rights it should probably have a say in marriage. The state should recognize every adult individual as equals, therefore gay marriage should be legal. No need to split hairs with civil union nonsense.

[MichaelEmouse]

Manda,

When talking about marriage in this discussion, we’ve talked about three groups of people:
People who are partnerless
People who are in a couple but not parties to a marriage contract
People who are in a couple and parties to a marriage contract

In your analogy, there’s two groups of people:
People in a parent/child relationship.
People who aren’t in a parent/child relationship.

You draw an analogy from a situation with three groups of people using a situation with two groups of people. That means that two groups are getting conflated into one in your analogy.

What is the analogical group of people who have neither parent nor children, is it A) people who are partnerless or B) people who are in a couple but not parties to a marriage contract?

What is the analogical group of people who have a parent or a child, is it A) people who are in a couple but not parties to a marriage contract or B) people who are in a couple and parties to a marriage contract?
You say: “not everyone is in such a relationship–in fact, a lot of people are not in such a relationship-as proof that such relationships are not real or that they do not need to be acknowledged by the government”

Using “in such a relationship” creates ambiguity. Do you mean “partner relationship acknowledged by the government”? If so, you sentence reads “not everyone is in a partner relationship acknowledged by the government–in fact, a lot of people are not in a partner relationship acknowledged by the government-as proof that such relationships are not real or that they do not need to be acknowledged by the government”

If a type of relationship is defined as being acknowledged by the government, how can it not need to be acknowledged by the government?