…you pussyfooter. We will follow you, as hard as we do the GramscoFabiaNazis. For we are not sure that you know if you are right.
David Davis
If you want to nationalise Marriage, then that is what you shall have to do. If not, then not.
Since when did the relationships of Men and Women, on their own or together, as people, belong to The State?
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Something I’ve wondered more than once. Why does the state feel the need for any involvement at all? If there had never been a Marriage Act or any other law defining legal marriage we wouldn’t have co-habitees, especially gay ones, getting upset about being treated differently. If the state shrugged it’s shoulders and said that marriage and how it’s defined is not a government function we would each have to decide for ourselves what it is. A religious person might feel that only their faith’s ceremony makes a couple married and that other denominations/religions can only do a kind of Married Lite in the eyes of their god. A broader minded soul might feel that any religious service counts as being properly married. Some secular types, including me, wouldn’t object if a couple simply stood up got all their family and friends together and simply announced that from then on they’d like to be thought of as husband and wife (or husband/husband or wife/wife – I don’t care about that either) and that the bar was now open and the first round’s on them. The religious traditionalists might say that they’re certainly not married, not even Married Lite, but so what? Everyone can have an opinion but in the absence of a legal definition of marriage differing opinions would remain just that. So why does the state like to brew up all this trouble for itself and want to define marriage in law at all? In the past it needed to know who was married for tax reasons, which is another way of saying that it was being discriminatory. And of course it still is. I think to take marriage or whatever label someone chooses to put on their relationship with another adult out of the hands of the state either none can have the tax allowance, or everyone must have it. Same goes for all remaining differences between relationships. Once everyone is treated the same the state no longer has an interest in whether your relationship can be called a marriage, a partnership or a long term leg over.
AE: What about polygamy?
The offer is flattering but no thanks. I’m very happy just with Mrs Exile. 🙂
Seriously, what about it? If it’s all consenting adults involved why should anyone else give a rip? If a polygamous group want to call what they’ve got marriage that’s up to them. Obviously they’ll have to get used to the fact that most people wouldn’t, but then the hypothetical extreme Christian might say the same about a regular male/female couple having a Registry Office do. Frankly it should be possible for someone to claim they’ve married their right hand or something from the rechargeable section of the Anne Summers catalogue. Nobody else need necessarily agree with them that they’re married as opposed to some other term, but that’s not the point. The thing is that the state would not have an interest and wouldn’t need to impose a particular legal definition.