"Much of it involves the equitable distribution of assets when the marriage is dissolved and some of it involves the allocation of children when it dissolves, along with issues like inheritance.
There’s a huge body of contract law surrounding marriage that is incredibly expensive to duplicate outside it.
In addition, marriage is the promotion of an unrelated life partner to first degree relative status. That also carries the right to visit the partner in a hospital if blood relatives disapprove and the right to claim a body after death. Neither of these rights can be conferred by contract law as it exists.
I’m afraid state marriage is here to stay, there’s just too much of it that the state has been involved in for far too long. However, what needs to be completely optional is religious marriage.
The state has a vested interest in refereeing marriages, especially when they break up. The state has no vested interest in telling consenting adults whom they might marry."
probably not, what is “the right to claim a body after death”? It obviously is not a fundamental right, it is not by itself and absolutely a right. It seems to me that the state just enforces promises and so basically turns marriage into a sort of unpleasant “you’d give me the kids if you loved me or I’ll throw you in jail” affair.
whomever has the closest relationship (as defined by the once living person in a will) to the dead person has the right unless that person waived/transfered the right somehow.
Then the government must be the decider because no one is ever related to them. [:S]
I hope you are not seriously suggesting this is a real problem.
I’m sure most of us here agree with private property?
Hospitals should be private property.
Whoever owns the hospital will likely be a good enough businessman and pass the decision making process down to administrators, doctors, nurses, techs, etc. They can deal with that issue much better than we or any government ever could.
When visitation rights issues are destroying freedom and the world, rather than government, we should consider coming back and giving this issue more thought.
is anyone else confused on the whole gay marriage issue? I certainly don’t have any problem with gays marrying each other, doesn’t affect me any. But at the same time I want to see the government less involved in things, including heterosexual marriage.
The state is not the authority on what is or is not marriage or who is and who is not married. They have fabricated a financial contract called ‘marriage’ which has fooled many Christian’s into thinking that the government holds more legitimacy on the subject then their own god does.
The reason why it is significant however is because of the tax incentives. Having the tax cuts through governments ‘marriage’ contract doesn’t mean that people married outside of the state are any less married. Marriage is a personal contract between you and another partie(s) and possibly a diety. It’s up to you to decide whats its worth. THe state’s decree is no more or less valid than anything else. FYI their contract makes divorce more difficult wink. You may consider that a good or a bad thing… lol
"Much of it involves the equitable distribution of assets when the marriage is dissolved and some of it involves the allocation of children when it dissolves, along with issues like inheritance.
There’s a huge body of contract law surrounding marriage that is incredibly expensive to duplicate outside it.
Actually, this can be accomplished very easily with a Living Trust for under $2,000.