"Keeping the government out" of marriage

Ignatius21

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Since the thread about "same-sex marriage" becoming part of a party platform has become an endless slug-fest about socialism and capitalism, I wanted to look at it from a different angle.

Among those who oppose granting "marriage" status to same-sex couples, some favor legally defining the term and preserving marriage as a state recognized and protected entity...others favor "getting the government out of it" altogether and keeping marriage recognized as a Christian institution within the Church, regardless of what the state says it is, or isn't. For that matter, the state shouldn't address it at all.

So my question to those who favor the latter, "Libertarian" view, is this:

What would this look like in practice?

What would the government actually do when people want to be married? Create a catch-all "civil union" (or whatever) legal status that any two (or more?) individuals can enter into, or exit from, that automatically confers some set of contractual rights upon the people in the union (property, inheritance, powers of attorney, custody, etc.)? Should people, married or otherwise, simply enter into legal agreements a la carte?

I'm genuinely curious. It sounds feasible in principle, but I'm not sure how people think it would play out. And please, don't get into protracted ideological debates about whether capitalism is evil, or whether Paul Ryan is the devil. :thumbsup: Just stick to the topic.
 

Knee V

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My "plan" is as follows:

1) Marriage is a function of religion, and thus marriage is a form of free religions expression. Thus marriage is not a thing that ought to be defined, nor is it something for which our government ought to grant permission.

2) If two people wish to marry according to the customs of their own religion, then the two people go ahead and marry according to that religion.

3) After they marry, they submit a form informing the government that they have married. It is not a license, nor is it permission. That way, in the case of divorce, death, abandonment, etc, as well in the absence of a will, the courts can help to ensure that rightful beneficiaries receive what is duly theirs, and that estranged/widowed spouses are not taken advantage of

4)Before a person can marry, he/she must show their potential spouse their marriage record that is on file. That way a person cannot marry multiple spouses at the same time. And if people do choose to engage in plural marriage, each spouse would be fully aware of the other spouses in relationship and that plural marriage would be fully consensual. And if a person finds out after their wedding that their spouse is married to other people without informing him/her before the wedding, then he/she can take legal action against the offending spouse.

In short, let people marry according to the customs of their religion, and have a few administrative requirements in place to help prevent fraud and other forms of victimization.

*Edit*

To clarify, there would still be a legal age of consent. We can't have people marrying 8-year-olds.
 
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Soderquj

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knee-v

I like it, let Marriage be a function of religion.
Let the state recognize a contract/commitment(some sort of documentation) not a marriage license. Keep it separate. You would not have to require marriage to have a legal contract/commitment for legal rights. I understand they do something like this in Germany.
 
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ArmyMatt

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personally, I say let the states figure these things out. ideally (in my opinion), marriage would be recognized as a union between one man and one woman, while each state would determine what benefits would go with consenting adults in some kind of union. so Utah could recognize polygamy should they choose, Massachusetts gay unions, etc. I just don't want the feds to get a hold of it, because they tend to mess stuff up.
 
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Sadly, the extreme Far Left will disregard Knee-V's approach and mandate that gay marriages be offered to homosexuals in ALL religions on pain of lawsuits and harrassment. Orthodox priests, Catholic priests, Anglican and Lutheran pastors and priests will have their pants sued off when they refuse to marry Chuck and Mike, and they'll have to close down. Sorry to sound as dire and grim as Rus on this, but I think it's true. Christianity is in for one major persecution in the next century that might make the last century look enviable. The gay issue is going to do irrepairable harm. The gay "right" agenda is not just the right to have a civil marriage, it's FULL rights and equality that will demand religions ALL yield to them....or face the consequences.
 
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Crawdad

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Sadly, the extreme Far Left will disregard Knee-V's approach and mandate that gay marriages be offered to homosexuals in ALL religions on pain of lawsuits and harrassment. Orthodox priests, Catholic priests, Anglican and Lutheran pastors and priests will have their pants sued off when they refuse to marry Chuck and Mike, and they'll have to close down. Sorry to sound as dire and grim as Rus on this, but I think it's true. Christianity is in for one major persecution in the next century that might make the last century look enviable. The gay issue is going to do irrepairable harm. The gay "right" agenda is not just the right to have a civil marriage, it's FULL rights and equality that will demand religions ALL yield to them....or face the consequences.

I have never heard anyone in the GLBT community claim this. Not saying it hasnt been said by some, but I doubt this line of thinking is the majority left stance.
 
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MKJ

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Since the thread about "same-sex marriage" becoming part of a party platform has become an endless slug-fest about socialism and capitalism, I wanted to look at it from a different angle.

Among those who oppose granting "marriage" status to same-sex couples, some favor legally defining the term and preserving marriage as a state recognized and protected entity...others favor "getting the government out of it" altogether and keeping marriage recognized as a Christian institution within the Church, regardless of what the state says it is, or isn't. For that matter, the state shouldn't address it at all.

So my question to those who favor the latter, "Libertarian" view, is this:

What would this look like in practice?

What would the government actually do when people want to be married? Create a catch-all "civil union" (or whatever) legal status that any two (or more?) individuals can enter into, or exit from, that automatically confers some set of contractual rights upon the people in the union (property, inheritance, powers of attorney, custody, etc.)? Should people, married or otherwise, simply enter into legal agreements a la carte?

I'm genuinely curious. It sounds feasible in principle, but I'm not sure how people think it would play out. And please, don't get into protracted ideological debates about whether capitalism is evil, or whether Paul Ryan is the devil. :thumbsup: Just stick to the topic.

My province has something like this available, though traditional civic marriage is also available. It is called a "registered domestic partnership." It more or less offers the same kind of protections as marriage. It doesn't actually assume there is any kind of sexual relationship though. The people that enter into it can be of any sort of relation - so it could be a single mother living with a sister, for example. It is limited to two individuals and they must be of legal age to contract with full responsibility.

I'm not sure how commonly used it is though. I know one couple who were living together and had an unplanned pregnancy, and they had one, and got married a year later. I don't know whether that was due to a change of mind or they had to wait to marry and used the partnership to cover themselves until then. I also knew an couple of sorts who would probably have used it, but before it was available they instead (illegally) claimed common law status. They were an elderly widow and a middle aged gay man.

It seems to raise some questions for me - given that many of the benefits we offer to married couples are really meant to help protect children and parents who stay home to care for them. On the other hand, it is really hard to get by alone for many people, and living with a trusty friend and being able to make these arrangements seems like a great relief in many ways.

I wonder though how is it really different from simply recognizing that civil marriage and religious marriage are different things? If we separate the functions as in some parts of Europe, where couples go to the courthouse to get the civil contract arranged and then go to the church or whatever for a wedding, I don't see how it is different if they call it a civil marriage or a civil domestic partnership or whatever.

And I don't see the problem of making decisions being really clearly fixed. There would still need to be decisions about whether it would include just couples or other arrangements, or closely related people, or whatever, and I am not sure we can get away from discussing whether those things would be good for society.
 
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rusmeister

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I have never heard anyone in the GLBT community claim this. Not saying it hasnt been said by some, but I doubt this line of thinking is the majority left stance.

First of all, I think the political ideas of "left" and "right" to be artificial, and that they do not express clear truth; only that a person (supposedly) stands on one of (only) two sides of a question on issues w, x, y and z. So I don't speak in terms encouraged by our two-party politics.

That said, most people are not capable of thinking, in the sense of discerning truth, at all. Therefore it is not surprising that they do not claim the things Gurney predicted. Of course they don't! They are incapable of thinking far enough ahead. They imagine a futuristic Startrekkian universe, or at least world, where everyone will be doing whatever they want, in any kind of relationship that pleases everybody, and everything will be hunky-dory, and only us grumpy traditional Christians stand in the way. That society will in fact break down when the family is successfully redefined is invisible to them.
 
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rusmeister

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My province has something like this available, though traditional civic marriage is also available. It is called a "registered domestic partnership." It more or less offers the same kind of protections as marriage. It doesn't actually assume their is any kind of sexual relationship though. The people that enter into it can be of any sort of relation - so it could be a single mother living with a sister, for example. It is limited to two individuals and they must be of legal age to contract with full responsibility.

I'm not sure how commonly used it is though. I know one couple who were living together and had an unplanned pregnancy, and they had one, and got married a year later. I don't know whether that was due to a change of mind or they had to wait to marry and used the partnership to cover themselves until then. I also knew an couple of sorts who would probably have used it, but before it was available they instead (illegally) claimed common law status. They were an elderly widow and a middle aged gay man.

It seems to raise some questions for me - given that many of the benefits we offer to married couples are really meant to help protect children and parents who stay home to care for them. On the other hand, it is really hard to get by alone for many people, and living with a trusty friend and being able to make these arrangements seems like a great relief in many ways.

I wonder though how is it really different from simply recognizing that civil marriage and religious marriage are different things? If we separate the functions as in some parts of Europe, where couples go to the courthouse to get the civil contract arranged and then go to the church or whatever for a wedding, I don't see how it is different if they call it a civil marriage or a civil domestic partnership or whatever.

And I don't see the problem of making decisions being really clearly fixed. There would still need to be decisions about whether it would include just couples or other arrangements, or closely related people, or whatever, and I am not sure we can get away from discussing whether those things would be good for society.

Civil social arrangements for people with (primarily economic) problems have been around for a long time. There is no need to invent "civil partnerships" for them. Again, specific arrangements can be made to allow the visits of people with legal or general responsibility for others in hospitals and inheritance can also be made without requiring anything resembling marriage. The whole reason LGBT people have backed "civil unions" is precisely with an eye on marriage, and it would be damned-foolish of us not to realize this. The entire struggle is around what the family shall be. Special government benefits are extremely secondary to the forcing of general social recognition that these two men (and possibly a hijacked child) are "a family".

There are good reasons why the government specially supports families, and why other arrangements should not be considered equivalent.

Supporting "civil unions" is damned foolishness, and I mean that in the theological sense with all of its weight. As long as we have any power in society (and it IS far less than it was) then we have a responsibility to use that power to encourage a moral society and discourage an immoral one.
 
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Well think it through. If being gay is not only natural, but GOD-GIVEN as most of them claim, then wouldn't it be a biggoted, hate-driven, unenlightened church that forbids their unions IN THEIR EYES? Follow the logic. They view themselves as a minority group as if they're born with black skin and anyone who treats them differently on a moral basis must be a type of racist hick biggot. Well, nobody would refuse to marry a black and white woman. That's absurd. It would be racist indeed. But through the lens these people see the world, being gay is exactly like being black. To deny a gay person marriage in any church would be tantamount to going back to the KKK and noose-hanging, church-burning, Jim Crow, pre-Brown v. Board, etc. Do you really think gays will be content with just stopping with a civil marriage if churches deny them their "rights?" I think your imagination for absurdity is limited, Craw, you need to strengthen the absurdity imagination muscle harder. Look back 40 years ago. If you told people that in 2012 everyone would be covered from head to toe with sickening, revolting tattoos, more people would be cohabitating or divorced than married, and that gay people would be "marrying" while the platform of a major political party would endorse such silliness? Once you've departed completely from Judeo-Christian morality and scoff at it with abandon, trust me, Craw, the possiblities are just endless, brother.

I have never heard anyone in the GLBT community claim this. Not saying it hasnt been said by some, but I doubt this line of thinking is the majority left stance.
 
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Two uses of the d word in one post, unprecedented for the Russter!

Civil social arrangements for people with (primarily economic) problems have been around for a long time. There is no need to invent "civil partnerships" for them. Again, specific arrangements can be made to allow the visits of people with legal or general responsibility for others in hospitals and inheritance can also be made without requiring anything resembling marriage. The whole reason LGBT people have backed "civil unions" is precisely with an eye on marriage, and it would be damned-foolish of us not to realize this. The entire struggle is around what the family shall be. Special government benefits are extremely secondary to the forcing of general social recognition that these two men (and possibly a hijacked child) are "a family".

There are good reasons why the government specially supports families, and why other arrangements should not be considered equivalent.

Supporting "civil unions" is damned foolishness, and I mean that in the theological sense with all of its weight. As long as we have any power in society (and it IS far less than it was) then we have a responsibility to use that power to encourage a moral society and discourage an immoral one.
 
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rusmeister

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Since the thread about "same-sex marriage" becoming part of a party platform has become an endless slug-fest about socialism and capitalism, I wanted to look at it from a different angle.

Among those who oppose granting "marriage" status to same-sex couples, some favor legally defining the term and preserving marriage as a state recognized and protected entity...others favor "getting the government out of it" altogether and keeping marriage recognized as a Christian institution within the Church, regardless of what the state says it is, or isn't. For that matter, the state shouldn't address it at all.

So my question to those who favor the latter, "Libertarian" view, is this:

What would this look like in practice?

What would the government actually do when people want to be married? Create a catch-all "civil union" (or whatever) legal status that any two (or more?) individuals can enter into, or exit from, that automatically confers some set of contractual rights upon the people in the union (property, inheritance, powers of attorney, custody, etc.)? Should people, married or otherwise, simply enter into legal agreements a la carte?

I'm genuinely curious. It sounds feasible in principle, but I'm not sure how people think it would play out. And please, don't get into protracted ideological debates about whether capitalism is evil, or whether Paul Ryan is the devil. :thumbsup: Just stick to the topic.

I've already kind of said it, but I'll put it a different way here.

If WE are the government, as we imagine we are by the mere act of voting, then obviously we DON'T want to exclude ourselves from saying what marriage and the family are.

If we are NOT, if the government is exclusive of us, then obviously, we do want them to not impose an alien idea.

The only answer is to insist that the family is one thing and not another, either way.

Encouraging the idea of marriage as a contract as opposed to a vow is destructive for everyone. All the other ideas are just attempts to accommodate people who don't want to accept what marriage and the family are. There can be no compromise. Either we suppress those ideas, or they will suppress ours.
 
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MKJ

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Civil social arrangements for people with (primarily economic) problems have been around for a long time. There is no need to invent "civil partnerships" for them. Again, specific arrangements can be made to allow the visits of people with legal or general responsibility for others in hospitals and inheritance can also be made without requiring anything resembling marriage. The whole reason LGBT people have backed "civil unions" is precisely with an eye on marriage, and it would be damned-foolish of us not to realize this. The entire struggle is around what the family shall be. Special government benefits are extremely secondary to the forcing of general social recognition that these two men (and possibly a hijacked child) are "a family".

There are good reasons why the government specially supports families, and why other arrangements should not be considered equivalent.

Supporting "civil unions" is damned foolishness, and I mean that in the theological sense with all of its weight. As long as we have any power in society (and it IS far less than it was) then we have a responsibility to use that power to encourage a moral society and discourage an immoral one.

What kind of other arrangements that have always existed are you thinking of? The only ones I can think of are contracts, and that is really all a civil partnership is. A civil partnership is really nothing other than a contract specifying the things you have mentioned, so how is putting it into one legal form different than putting it into a half-dozen?
 
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rusmeister

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What kind of other arrangements that have always existed are you thinking of? The only ones I can think of are contracts, and that is really all a civil partnership is. A civil partnership is really nothing other than a contract specifying the things you have mentioned, so how is putting it into one legal form different than putting it into a half-dozen?

Business partnerships have always existed, for example. But they have been strongly discouraged since the rise of corporate hegemony. I worked fro a while for a company that did incorporations, and learned about the aspects and legalities of individual ownership of an organization vs partnership vs corporate ownership.

But all partnerships have a specific aim. I am specifically addressing the ones whose aim is to approximate marriage. Speaking of a partnership with no aim, no goal and no purpose is pointless. The whole point is in the purpose of the partnership. If it's not trying to do what marriage does, it is irrelevant to the discussion. And if it is, it needs to be crushed, and any legitimate needs addressed in other ways.
 
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Knee V

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Sadly, the extreme Far Left will disregard Knee-V's approach and mandate that gay marriages be offered to homosexuals in ALL religions on pain of lawsuits and harrassment. Orthodox priests, Catholic priests, Anglican and Lutheran pastors and priests will have their pants sued off when they refuse to marry Chuck and Mike, and they'll have to close down. Sorry to sound as dire and grim as Rus on this, but I think it's true. Christianity is in for one major persecution in the next century that might make the last century look enviable. The gay issue is going to do irrepairable harm. The gay "right" agenda is not just the right to have a civil marriage, it's FULL rights and equality that will demand religions ALL yield to them....or face the consequences.

I certainly agree with you that my scenario will never happen. There are too many gears turning with too much momentum for me to think that any kind of fight against this movement is winnable. That's not to say that I don't believe in standing my ground, but that I know what the outcome will be in a general sense.

And you're not being "dire and grim". You're just being realistic.
 
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buzuxi02

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...others favor "getting the government out of it" altogether and keeping marriage recognized as a Christian institution within the Church, regardless of what the state says it is, or isn't. For that matter, the state shouldn't address it at all.

So my question to those who favor the latter, "Libertarian" view, is this:

What would this look like in practice?


This has been the practise of the Orthodox Church since the collapse of the empire. Utilized under the Ottomons, its still the procedure in Israel, Lebanon and was for Greece until the early 1980's.

Ironically on the Church of Greece website is an article on the family, written shortly before marriage was nationalized. A portion of the article (in anticipation of the introduction of civil marriage) addresses the reverse of your question. "What will civil marriages look in practise". It posed questions of what the church may expect including gay marriage and other non-traditional arrangements, quite prophetic considered it was written in like 1982
 
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Don't get me wrong, bro, I WISH your views would play out into a real-time realistic scenario, trust me! :thumbsup::cool:

I certainly agree with you that my scenario will never happen. There are too many gears turning with too much momentum for me to think that any kind of fight against this movement is winnable. That's not to say that I don't believe in standing my ground, but that I know what the outcome will be in a general sense.

And you're not being "dire and grim". You're just being realistic.
 
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bibledoctor

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For instance, a royal marriage of king and queen is symbolic of a monarchial goverment. (IE) The old Byzantium Empire

In other cases, marriage between a man and woman can represent the gov't of a small foreign country.

In one example, a Royal Wedding in the Orthodox Church can be important to the social and govermental structure of the Church in today's society.
 
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Ignatius21

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I think I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure I fully understand something...

My "plan" is as follows:

1) Marriage is a function of religion, and thus marriage is a form of free religions expression. Thus marriage is not a thing that ought to be defined, nor is it something for which our government ought to grant permission.

2) If two people wish to marry according to the customs of their own religion, then the two people go ahead and marry according to that religion.

3) After they marry, they submit a form informing the government that they have married. It is not a license, nor is it permission. That way, in the case of divorce, death, abandonment, etc, as well in the absence of a will, the courts can help to ensure that rightful beneficiaries receive what is duly theirs, and that estranged/widowed spouses are not taken advantage of

4)Before a person can marry, he/she must show their potential spouse their marriage record that is on file. That way a person cannot marry multiple spouses at the same time. And if people do choose to engage in plural marriage, each spouse would be fully aware of the other spouses in relationship and that plural marriage would be fully consensual. And if a person finds out after their wedding that their spouse is married to other people without informing him/her before the wedding, then he/she can take legal action against the offending spouse.

In short, let people marry according to the customs of their religion, and have a few administrative requirements in place to help prevent fraud and other forms of victimization.

*Edit*

To clarify, there would still be a legal age of consent. We can't have people marrying 8-year-olds.

For any of the above to work, there must be some (even minimal) definition of "marriage" to which all can agree, or else there is nothing about which to inform the government, and no way to enforce rights or protect against victimization, because it all depends on how somebody defines terms like "marriage," "spouse" and "wedding."

To use a term like "plural marriage" necessarily requires that "marriage" contain within its own definition the potential for plurality, which means that "marriage" between only two people is merely one form or subset of a larger category of marriage, which can be between any number of people. Or am I misunderstanding?

In short I still fail to see how the government can grant recognition of any kind, or provide any form of legal protection against abuse or victimization, without at least implicitly recognizing one standard definition of "marriage."

If we replace the term with "civil union" or "mutually binding social contract" or whatever, then that replacement term must still be defined somehow.

So in essence are you proposing the creation of a broad, legally binding contractual category, called perhaps "marriage," that entails rights of property, inheritance, and so forth, but implies nothing more? I.e. says nothing of genders, numbers of people involved, or even any assumption that the union is in any way sexual?

And to your last point, why can't somebody "marry" an 8-year old? Simply for the same reasons that minors cannot enter into any other legally binding contracts? I sense that your comment about consent, and "can't have people marrying 8 year olds" has some concern about children being sexually victimized (which I totally share, as should any sane person), but if the basic definition of "marriage" doesn't contain sexuality within itself, it seems the only basis for excluding "marriage" to minors would be their inability to consent to basic legal contracts.

This may seem argumentative (it probably is) but I'm just trying to probe further into whether it's even possible to keep government out of marriage without defining the term. Maybe it is, but I'm not understanding how just yet. :confused:
 
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