Privatization of Marrige

Gotta explain that a bit more...

 

Marriage is a legal contract. To privatise marriage is to abolish it; it'd just be a piece of paper with no legal significance.

 

Yeah, I know that, but that doesn't work. If the state has no control over marriage, then the state does not have marriage, and it's just a piece of paper given by someone with no legal authority and is just making it nothing more than a social convention that could be dismissed at will.

 

I have heard these arguments about the "get the government out of the marriage business" before, often from Ron Paul-style libertarian conservatives, but even from some ostensibly self-proclaimed pro-marriage equality Republicans.

Of course these "get the government out of marriage" ideas only cropped up recently in response to the recent rise of same-sex marriage as an issue, never before was this is an issue anyone was advocating before. So the motives are immediately questionable in my opinion.

So to me it strikes me as a childish "take my toys and go home" kinda response.

After the federal courts struck down public school desegregation in the South, many Southern school districts' response was thus to simply shut down public schools completely, thus 'privatizing' education and establishing whites-only private schools for white people to send their children too. Rather than comply with a court order to desegregate their public schools, Southern districts decided the solution was to simply shut down their public schools completely. To me this "get the government out of marriage" response to the rise of same-sex marriage basically mirrors the Southern response to desegregate public schools. They would rather shut down the whole public institution rather than allow it to be made equal.

Recently in Oklahoma, after a court ruling made same-sex marriage a real possibility there, one of Oklahoma's state legislators actually proposed a bill to abolish state marriage completely just to prevent same-sex couples from ever partaking in the equal rights of same-sex marriage.

So while some "get the government out of marriage" proponents might be genuine, maybe Ron Paul and his brand of anti-government supporters, for the most part I find the "privatize marriage" gang to be simply homophobic assholes who are using this as an excuse just to do everything they can to screw LGBTQ people, even by screwing straight married couples in the process.

 

I am kind of uncertain on the idea. I could see the argument for having states only have civil unions for everyone and having marriages be something you can celebrate privately that the state isn't involved in at all. However, I can also see the argument that the only reason people are saying this should happen is they don't want gays to get married. I marked for because I lean slightly more that way, but only if there is something else in place that is equal for all.

 

Privatization gets rid of all government benefits of being married. In my opinion most of the people who say "Get the government out of marriage" are the ones that hate SSM but know they're losing, so it's like the "I'm taking my toys and your toys too and going home" kind of deal. So I'm against it fullheartedly. It would be nice to have the government out of some social issues, but marriage should remain a contract that can be honored by the government. Besides, getting rid of marriage would take an amendment, because in the 14th amendment under the equal protection clause, civil marriage licenses in one thing included, which makes me surprised no pro-marriage equality people have ever said that.

 

This is basically the "if the gays can get married, lets get rid of marriage" argument. It's a way for right-wingers to oppose gay marriage on a legal basis without pulling the religion card. You didn't see these people putting this argument forward until gay marriage became a possibility and reality.

 

...Who implied that I'm a childish homophobe?
Shame, man.
I've got to agree with Aussie792 here and say marriage was always a mere contract. I digress. I'm somewhat anti-marriage and think the important issue is not marriage, but acceptance of LGBTs as normal people and not being seen as child molesters, freaks, sinners, and crazies.
I say I'm all for privatization here. At the same time, I wouldn't object if it remained a government thing.
Either way is fine, because I don't see this as a very important issue.

 

I'm for it. Yes, I understand this would be abolishing it, but I don't think that is a bad thing. People today get 'married' without legal significance, for instance in places where gay marriage isn't yet legal, or in the muslim community in the UK (apparently most of the marriages don't have legal effect). People aren't going to stop having marriages in the social sense, because it's a part of their culture they aren't going to abandon.

At the same time, it would result in the end of marriage-related discrimination. Not just gay people, but poly as well. Financial benefits to marriage are also highly discriminatory.

 

While I think that marriage is, or can be, more than a legal contract (most people are married primarily for social and romantic reasons rather than legal ones), I'm still against privatization of marriage.

The legal benefits attached to marriage are worth maintaining, in my opinion. Eliminating these would be a fast-track to marriage equality, but an unnecessary one. Marriage equality for same-sex couples in the U.S. is inevitable at this point anyway, and even marriage privatization would speed up that process, it wouldn't provide any tangible benefits for same-sex couples, and would ultimately strip those couples of the marriage benefits they would have received once same-sex marriage attained legal recognition.

 

I'd kind of like the tax benefits and the legal rights that come with marriage, so no. I'm against it.

 

I like the idea of there being no marriage in a legal sense to some degree, but it wouldn't change anything. Even if there were no 'legal' marriage, it wouldn't stop people from claiming their marriage is more legitimate than an LGBT marriage. If anything it would just fix blame squarely on us that they don't have the civil and tax benefits they used to be afforded...

 

Too many people are currently married to just phase it out. It's simply not practical. You can't wave a wand, and erase thousands of years of common-law and hundreds of years of law, in which people are currently involved.

For all these so-called 'libertarians' who want to make it go away, I've never seen them address the myriad problems of simply phasing it out. They sure do love to talk about it, but are short on solving the problems phasing it out would introduce.

Then again, most libertarians I've met are really conservatives or bigots in disguise, using it as a thinly veiled cloak...folks like Ron and Rand Paul, especially.

 

As a socialist, I actually support this idea. I think marriage is an antiquated social institution that should be phased out.

 

@Husky

While that may be true, should something NOT be done, just because to do it would be impractical?

 

Husky is all ears!

But I haven't heard any details about what should be done. There's a LOT of married people who are not going to want to lose things like their spouse's health benefits, a deceased spouses SS benefits, veterans benefits...not to mention cases of custody, estate taxes, and so many other matters. One might 'try' to make all this 'equal', but I'm not seeing any actual examples of how one would go about this.

 

Husky, I think you would make everything work by having civil unions. Anyone who is already married would be grandfathered in and automatically get a civil union. Civil unions would then provide those benefits. From here on out, people would apply for civil unions, which any couple would be eligible for, instead of a marriage license to get the benefits that marriage currently provides. Marriage would be a purely social contract rather than a government one, and the social organizations providing them would be able to determine who can get married.

 

Somewhat along the lines of Flymetothemoon's post -
Part of what makes this whole marriage thing confusing in many countries is that various religious groups have the power to also register the "governmental" portion (i.e tax benefits, next-of-kin medical decisions, survivor pension, etc...) on behalf of the government. So in a way it's already privatized or delegated/contracted out, and it doesn't really work for all does it. Groups against same sex marriage complain that the bad immoral government will force them to perform ceremonies against their beliefs/rituals/etc... - in the same way women can now be ordained priests in the Catholic church (btw being sarcastic here - regardless of various declarations/bill/charters of human rights they still can't).

I say unprivatize the civil portion, make the civil portion (can be a very simple economical contract signing thing with witnesses at City Hall) a requirement for all those benefits, and allow people to have the ritual/ceremony/party/whatever of their choice separately.