Why does the Government acknowledge ANY marriage? Straight or Gay? I am a single straight male, and I take offense that the Government would offer differentiating labels to its citizens. It is a "Holy Matrimony" and separation of Church and State is not being adhered to. The government needs to disregard all marriages in terms "Government perception". The marriage "License" process needs to be abolished. Nobody should have to ask for the government’s permission to be wed in front of God. Not sure what the atheists are gonna do, but I don't care. If your spiritual advisors are willing to marry you and your loved one, then the best of luck to you. But the government should NOT acknowledge being married in any capacity. As a single male, the government’s recognition of marriage is unconstitutional.

Hmm. Good question.

Governments acknowledge marriage as a legal and contracted union, not as a religious process. You can have all the ceremonials you like, but until you register the marriage with a licence, you're still single. Similarly, you can get a licence with two witnesses and an administrator and no ceremony to speak of.

Governments do this because, generally, married people want them to, and in purely pragmatic terms, marriage is as socially useful as freedom of speech, association, and all the other social freedoms that even the most libertarian recognise have to be defined by governments if not regulated by them. Anyone who thinks that such rights and freedoms are not a form of social engineering are not thinking clearly - deciding not to do someting on principle (such as limiting free speech) is as clear a decision as deciding to do something.

The fact that certain kinds of marriage are regulated against, such as homosexual, sibling, platonic, adult-minor, human-animal, etc, is the high horse for such constitutional pedantry to be hitched to, not the fact that marriage is recognised at all.

If you DO go down that route, why should the law acknowledge companies as a different type of social unit with it's own rights and responsibilities (just as they do marriage)? Why not just say they are a collection of freely associating individuals with a shared financial (rather than romantic) interest (which is what you seem to be arguing for)?

Thanks for the response. I see your point that marriage is socially beneficial but that does not require the Government to play any part in it. Freedom of speech is a great example. The Government gives us freedom of speech. It does not intervene by telling us what we can say, or who we can say it to, or when we can say it. Here's an idea. Freedom of Marriage. the government would intervene in extreme cases of abuse similar to how it handles freedom of speech. How could this approach to marriage NOT be welcomed by all? And if the government is hading out special privileges to married couples, it needs to stop, as that is unfair to people like me.

The government is involved primarily to grant certain legal benefits to married couples. In the eyes of the government, marriage is rather like a corporation. Two people join their assets and work toward the common goal of building a family and providing for that family. These legal benefits shouldn't be considered "special privledges" manypaths because honestly most of them would not apply to single people.

As an example:
- Laws related to what happens when the union is to be dissolved
- Laws which allow both parties to act on behalf of the other without having specific legal documents detailing that arrangement. For example: financial matters, assumption of property and assets in case of death, etc.

As you can see none of those are relevant for single people and I really wouldn't call them priveldges so much as conveniences.

If you are talking about financial benefits then you are wrong there too.
- Taxes: married people actually pay higher taxes by being grouped together than they would otherwise pay individually.
- Insurance: while one might think this is a benefit of marriage, this is not guaranteed in a legal sense. Insurance companies could just as easily give married people higher car insurance premiums. The reason they don't is because they base the premiums on risk. If you are married you represent less risk to them because you are settling down.



Actually it does. You can be put in jail for certain types of speech. For example saying, jokingly or not, that you want to harm the president. You can also be sued for things you say based on the libel and slander laws.

There are very few if any unrestricted freedoms.

Interesting view point Cube Jockey. By no means am I saying that society not acknowledge marriage. If society were able to do this, including corporations, then the only thing that the government should be concerned about is a legal name change. The reasons for the name change can be many, and simply stating that you have become married should suffice. Insurance companies, employers and peers could still recognize a couple as being married. Competition would insure that this happen. And like Freedom of Speech, there are extremes that do need to be mandated by the Government, but that should apply to people that are abusing the system. Sure the government can track who is getting married to whom, but beyond that, I truly feel that there is no place for government in marriage. While still trying to comprehend why Bush suggested an amendment to the constitution to give the government more control over marriage, it dawned on me that the government should have NO control on marriage. Will there be a day when you must be married by a Government official?