Thread: Republican Steve King wants an abolish civil marriage in the United States

Originally Posted by WorldWatcher

Why would you assume my response to "holy matrimony" would indicate that?


"Marriage" exists in two realms: Civil and Religious. Just because you choose to forgo a religious marriage doesn't invalidate your civil marriage.



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I agree, almost. Instead of "civil and religious" though, I'd say civil and personal. The personal level is where religious marriage resides, but not everyone has a religious marriage. Civil is about the benefits, rights, responsibilities, social recognition, and other such parts of marriage. Besides religious marriage, personal marriage includes the reasons why someone got married, how they feel about children as part of their marriage, and other things that are basically for the couple to decide to include or not in their marriage, at least to me.

Originally Posted by Henrin

So really it mostly just comes down to cost and the amount of work needed to get what people want. I really don't think those are very strong reasons, sorry.

We refer to that as "being efficient". Most consider efficiency to be a good thing.

Originally Posted by Eric7216

You are getting carried away by a number of strawman arguments. This whole episode has made me wonder why the government gives out special benefits for married couples. At one time, perhaps it made sense as most married couples produced children and it is good public policy to support families. However, as almost 50% of the adult population are unmarried, many for life and many couples remain child-less why should the government give the married people special benefits? We are still discriminating against the unmarried, many of whom are unmarried not by choice but by opportunity. We are contributing to inequality of income as wealthier people tend to marry wealthier people, doubling their income and giving them tax benefits.

The question is: Why should the government be involved in personal living arrangements? Why not return marriage to the way many want it and in which the benefit of marriage is their own value system, not governmental special rights? Anyone can marry. Just don't give the near minority who want to be married special rights.

The government is involved in personal living arrangements because they are involved in recognition of legal kinship. Refer to birth certificates and adoptions. There is also the fact that people, in general, want the government involved in these personal relationships. The majority would not be happy with giving up marriage, especially not if they knew exactly what it meant to do this.

Originally Posted by Henrin

Arguing to expand or maintain governments authority because you can't be arsed to write your own contracts or you don't want to spend a little coin is hardly convincing.

So give up efficiency just so people can work harder? The people want the government involved in this matter.

Originally Posted by Moot

Too late, Steven King....


U.S. Episcopalians vote to let gay couples wed in churches | Reuters

Everybody knows Episcopalians aren't real Christians. For one thing, they've only been born once!

As much as I dislike Rep King and his absurd defense of NSA spying, I agree with the action here. I truthfully don't care who gets married and who doesn't, it is none of my business, but I think "civil marriage" is a ridiculous idea. You can say it's about love all you want but if you need a title to be in love then you obviously don't know love. It's a legal issue, one that shouldn't exist. If a church wants to marry two people then that's fine; but, a legal household partnership should be nothing more than what it really is- a civil union. Civil unions, being done through the government, should then have an equal definition and be available to any consenting persons that apply

Originally Posted by roguenuke

The government is involved in personal living arrangements because they are involved in recognition of legal kinship. Refer to birth certificates and adoptions. There is also the fact that people, in general, want the government involved in these personal relationships. The majority would not be happy with giving up marriage, especially not if they knew exactly what it meant to do this.

Cant all that just be recorded in the courts, by magistrates, etc anyway? Stamped by a notary...boom! So noted. And now your kid can inherit your stuff, visit you in the hospital, be recognized legitimately in custody hearings, etc?