Why is government in the marriage business?

There is no detail. It is a common religious practice, so common as to be adopted as a legally-recognized status, much like Christmas, a religious holiday, was so widely celebrated it was made an official holiday. The popularity does not mean it is not a religious act and thus should not be endorsed by a government.

 

Which militates against nothing I said, obviously.

Something you have no understanding of, so you might as well shut the hell up about it.

I'm not the least bit interested in your anarchist ravings, but do feel free to contribute the minute you acquire the merest wisp of a clue as to what the hell you're talking about.

 

Bs. The distinction you make would be apt, if only the "American Taliban" was fighting for the legal recognition of AK47s to be *called* guns while no one sought to strip anyone of them, and people were getting preference on their income returns for owning guns. Bs.

 

It would be apt if the American Taliban were not refusing equal humans rights because:
Homosexuals can be barred because they cannot produce children, even though children are not a requirement of marriage.
Homosexuals can be barred because they cannot produce children, even though sterile heterosexual couples are not barred.
Homosexuals can be barred because they cannot produce children, even though heterosexual couples with no intentions of children are not barred.
Homosexuals can be barred because marriage is a Christian tradition, even though marriage predates Christianity and Judaism.
Homosexuals can be barred because marriage is a Christian tradition, even thought marriage is a legal contract and legally not a religious contract.
homosexuals can be barred because marriage includes marriages to rape victims, slaves, war treasures, children, and multiple wives, but not same sex couples.
Homosexuals can be barred because marriage is a Christian tradition, even though the US is not a theocracy.
Homosexuals can be barred because marriage allows for tax benefits, but there are so few homosexuals their opinion doesn't matter (so then the tax burden would come from what?).
Homosexuals can be barred because bigots find it icky, but the social acceptance of bigots typically has not been a requirement for marriage. Except for interracial marriage, where the same arguments used against gay marriage was used again interracial marriage.

I can come up with plenty more stupid.

 

You came up with stupid the first time, why do you need more? Oh and BTW, I have guns, so I want my preferential tax treatment.

 

You can better ask yoursellf why government is involved in most social issues, or why they have poliicized all social issues over the last hundred years.
Gay, marriage, religion, race, healthcare, fire arms, taxes, education, immigration, etc etc, you name it, every social (and financial) aspect of society was politicized over the past hundred years.
Main reasons, control, power and organisation. Because most people don't want gov involvement, all that involvement is causing people to start to fight, to resist, and that resistance is causing their organisation (people vote and hope their problems will solve after they have voted. Every four years you see a 'winning' party' and nothing solves afterwards. Politics is an endless process of organisation (a war against the mind of a population to take away their power) Politics does not solve problems, but creates problems to (very clearly) instill fight in people (millions are drawn into a political struggle, which is nearly endless, ends when they have reached a majority (of fighting and/or euphoric mass) behind one political figure/leader)
Politics is forcing people to fight, or resist all the political topics and issues, and this is how they are able to take the power (votes) from the people (the ones who vote) and organize them behind politicians and parties.

 

If that's what you think, the obvious course of action is to start your own damn thread and keep your off-topic trash outa mine, tia.

 

Couples do not have to have children or plan to have children in order to obtain a marriage license, so your argument falls apart. In my opinion marriage ideally would simply be a private contract individuals make. Various churches would have their contracts, as would various secular individuals or groups (such as law firms). Government would get involved to enforce these contracts just like any other contract. This is hardly the issue at the top of my agenda, however.

 

Marriage is a civil contract.

Enforcement of civil contracts is a legitimate function of government - unlike free stuff.

So government does indeed have a dog in that fight.

 

I probably have more than you. Ha.

 

I shudder to think what it must be like to live inside the head of anyone who thinks the conclusion follows from the premise.

Do be a big favor and get lost, tia.

 

And that is precisely where your argument fails: Procreation is neither a stipulation to government marriage, nor is it exclusive to it.

You are, as many do, making the mistake of conflating paternity with matrimony. The two may intersect, but may just as easily be mutually exclusive. The only real intersection, in fact, is the presumption of paternity as regards a child born in lawful wedlock.

Once again, you are confusing paternity with matrimony. Try to avoid this mistake as it detracts significantly from the quality of your argument.

 

Correct. In a nation of free men, we do not need the government to "bless" our personal private relationships. But the nanny-staters and social engineers view it differently as they wish to use government as a tool not for the preservation of liberty, but for their own satisfaction in using the power of the state to shape society in a manner pleasing to them.

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More control over their subjects.

 

Only a court of law can enforce a contract.

In a nation of free men, the purpose of marriage is what each free man says it is (and by extension, free woman).

 

You are again confusing matrimony with paternity. And only a criminal court can impose criminal penalties.

No, this thread is about government marriage.

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He/she never said that.

 

He is confusing paternity with matrimony--a common mistake.

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No! We need the government nanny to protect us.

 

But the special contract the government calls marriage is arbitrarily discriminatory and totally unnecessary. Consenting adults who wish to form legal bonds can just as easily accomplish that through private contracts.

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Pretty much nailed it.

 

If only it were... then there would be no problem. But we have elected to allow the government to make it a special kind of contract and that's where the problem lies.

 

Ridiculous argument..... We have ALL KINDS of legal contracts that DON'T involve marriage...... The best scenario is for the government to honor civil union contracts ANY two adults can join into and leave marriage where it belongs, in religious institutions.

 

To be sure. Alas, I fear I'm at a loss to understand how that contravenes so much as a syllable of the OP.

I'm not interested in solutions to unnamed problems. I'm interested in direct answers to the questions in the OP, about which you have said nothing intelligent.

 

Your ridiculous premise was we somehow needed a "marriage" for contract purposes...... A civil union contract does the SAME EXACT thing......

It's REAL simple, even YOU may be able to understand it. You create a civil union contract that any two people can sign into and eliminate the government into"marriage" argument altogether.

That's the Libertarian solution you were mistaken to call rhetoric when it's not only feasable? It's a win/win solution. Religious folks will get their religiously santioned marriage and gays will get their legal civil unions.

Next time, putsome thought into your OP.

 

What the hell this even means is a complete mystery, never mind how you managed to extract it from anything I said.

I suppose pretending to address the OP with Libertarian sloganeering while ignoring the direct questions in it is simple enough.

Something tells me it woulda made more sense to people like you had it been written under the influence of LSD.

 

The government is in the marriage business for two reasons.

1; They realized that requiring licenses to get married is a good way to raise money.

2; Far right Christians like to dictate peoples' private lives, and using the government to prohibit forms of marriage they don't like appeals to them.

 

Ad hominem is not a valid argument.

 

Yet a non sequitur is evidently a perfectly valid argument as far as you're concerned.