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Friday, May 11, 2012

Marriage

As I see it, the problem in discussing the issue of marriage is that marriage has traditionally embraced two distinct concepts.

One is the personal commitment to love, honor, cherish, and remain faithful to one another.  The other is a legal partnership that without pre-nups establishes a 50/50 legally binding financial contract.  When conflated under the tag of “marriage” it is difficult to reconcile the traditional concept of marriage with any non-traditional concept of marriage.

So here is my suggestion.  The government gets completely out of the marriage business.  Any two individuals, without qualification, would be able to enter into a civil union (not a new concept).  This “Civil Union” would be a binding legal contract that would carry all of the benefits now associated with traditional marriage (already in place in a few states).

Then if the couple wants to get “married” (the personal commitment part) they can do so in whatever manner and in whatever venue they desire, totally void of government involvement.  Then marriage would mean what it means to that couple based on their belief system.

In my small circle of friends (which includes 1 same sex couple) the conservatives like the idea, the liberals are luke-warm, and the same sex couple thinks it is a non issue.
Posted by Tom at 6:28 AM

4 comments:

  1. AllenMay 11, 2012 at 3:58 PM

    No conservative has been able to explain to my satisfaction why government is in the marriage business in the first place. It all seems to go against their small government agenda.

    I think your idea is exactly what needs to happen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownMay 11, 2012 at 5:50 PM

      As in the fiddler movie: !!TRADITION!!

      The Rational Conservative's basic approach is:
      "The burden of proof is on the advocate of change."

      I agree with y'all that the burden of proof is about to be met.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousMay 11, 2012 at 4:33 PM

    Agreed!

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMay 11, 2012 at 5:58 PM

    I agree with the stipulation that a lot of laws are going to have to be rewritten.
    For example I think SS recognizes only marriage as providing surviving partner benefits.

    Could an old person, say a widow, then form a Civil Union with a child and pass on all of that wealth (regular and IRAs for example) without letting the govt get a cut of it?

    Now that I think about it, if you presented it just right, you might get a lot of conservative support for this idea.

    ReplyDelete

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