After reading ad naseum about the gay marriage issue, a thought entered my mind. Why is the government endorsing marriage at all? I mean, those advocating for gay marriage, do they really care about peoples rights? If so, what about polygamists right to marry? I suppose the only way for those on the left to care anything about the polygamist right to marry would be to frame it as a question about gay polygamists right to marry. In short, why should the state be involved in the bedroom at all? In addition, why the marriage welfare? Should people get special government perks just for saying, "I do"?
It is a violation of the constitution under the equal rights and protection acts to give married people special rights that single people don't have. Why do married people have a separate tax column than single people. It isn't right. Why shouldn't a single person be free to leave their property behind in a will to whomever that person wants to leave it to with the same exact tax benefits or penalties that a spouse would have? It isn't right that spouse's have better privileges. Lets make our world a fairer and more equal place and get rid of marriage discrimination by getting rid of Government regulated marriage contracts and all the laws that go with it. Give us single people the freedom and the equality we deserve.
I would like to see civil unions acknowledged by the government and marriage left in the realm of religion.
Easy answer, states should get out of the marriage business. They should have civil unions instead. They should treat it like forming a corporation. Any number of people regardless of race, religion, sex, color can come together and form a corporation. The same should be true of civil unions. Let the gays and polygamists have at it. Should make family court interesting.
why can't marriage be in both areas , Holy Matrimony is with the church and Marriage only is a state thing?
why do we even need civil unions?if you want to give "families" a tax break, give it to any household the co-habituates for the entire tax year. that alone is more commitment than we see out of many marriages.
If you're going to get a tax break for living with someone you should have to sign a piece of paper and face consequences for breaking up. Otherwise every roommate would sign up for a tax break. It would be chaos.
that's why they have to co-habitate for the entire tax year. as it stands now, if you get married on New Year's Eve, you get what ever break there might be (it rarely even applies anymore for duel income households) for the entire proceeding year. i'm sorry, but i think that with how easy divorce is these days, two college buddies that share a house for an entire year are showing more commitment then two folks that show up in Vegas at the end of the year. and as it stands, a lease is more enforcable than wedding vows.
I think what you meant to say that smoking is not illegal, but they discourage it. So yes, but the key there is they discourage it. In other words, they don't give tax breaks to smolkers nor do they give benefits of any kind to smokers. How then is this not apples and oranges in comparison?
Marriage as an institution, as it is currently considred, is full of baloney. Our divorce rate is 50%- that's not an institution, that's a joke. I think we should let any two people who both desire marriage marry because who gives- it's not like that's going to do anything but improve our divorce rate, and it satisfies everyone. It's not the job of the church to tell the state what to do. Most of my family and friends agree with that, and half of them are either ministers or divinity professors. It's great to marry- as long as you plan on loving and being in a strong and committed relationship with someone for the next 50 years. Otherwise, stick with bf/gf. It's more exciting sounding that way- all your friends will be jealous in the office when your girlfriend is calling about a date, while their wives call to say they're going on a shopping spree and wasting all your friends' money. Oh, and "endorsing is an interesting concept". If by permitting your population to do stuff, then yes, I am all for "endorsing" marriage. If by posting adverts and such saying "You should marry now!" then (whatever applicable deity) forbid! That would be just lame- not wrong necessarily, just no one would like the ads.
The original reason for marriage was to protect the wife/wives and children in a marriage. The marriage assigned specific duties of the survivors of a society. A brother was required to marry his dead brothers wife, and on and on. Today, we are NOT run by religious laws, so the govt assigns rights to protect families. At last count there were over 100 individual legal rights assigned by marriage. Just because two people are of the same sex should have no bearing on the matter. If your church does NOT want to marry gays, it does not have to. If some other church wishes to marry gays, they should be allowed to. If two people of the same sex wish to have a courthouse MARRIAGE, they should be allowed to. This religious bias, bigotry and hatred of gays should be removed from our laws.
A marriage gives LEGAL rights and by law, we must seperate our govt from religion, since laws are of the govt, religion should be left out. Marriage in every state is a govt right, the right to perform marriage is given by the state.Since marriage gives state and federal rights, get religion out of it. If you want a priest or preacher to marry you fine. If you want to deny the right of others who wish to create a marriage contract for religious bias, get over it.
So I should government abandon the religion of redistribution? Should it abandon the religion of democracy by forcing governments around the world to adopt it? Woops, my bad, government is free to pick a moral stance or any religion of choice so long as the word "God" is not used in the mix. To say that I shouild not support a moral issue based on the fact that I believe in God is absurd. What you are essentially saying is that you can participate in government so long as you are a secular humanist. The Founding Fathers made it very claer. They did not want a state sponsored religion, however, they did not want to divorce religion in public life either. This means that opening a Congressional sesion of Congress is OK. This means putting "In God we trust" on the currency is OK. This means that placing the Ten Commandments in the court rooms is OK. However, to start the church of America is NOT OK. Got it?
In this day and age, government has its hand in everything. To think they would withdraw that hand at any point is niave to say the least.
Well, the fact you believe in some god IS absurd, but that has nothing to do with the legal rights granted by a marriage. If you want a religious wedding, get one, if your preacher does not want to marry gays, then he will not be made to, other than that, it is none of your business. Marriage is a LEGAL contract with legal implications, NOT religious one. This is AMERICA not ITALY.
How in the world can a LEGAL and legally binding contract, be separate from the govt. How can any contract which gives SPECIFIC legal rights be outside the government?
The fact that I have to buy a marriage liscense is absurd. What is the point exactly? Secondly, it is my businesses where my tax dollars go, so those that are given "perks" with my tax money IS my business. If you don't want it to be my business then don't involve MY tax money. Got it? As for America not being Italy, I'm confident the way things are going the European Union will ask us to join.
The gov't should have nothing to do with marriage. The entire issue is convoluted and absurd and is just getting more so. Oddly enough, my employer offers health insurance for "domestic partners". I thought "Great, I can insure myself, my daughter and her mother(my girlfriend) who I've been living with for the past 7 years." Nope, apparently we have to be gay and of the same gender to qualify. You can't make this stuff up. :-/
