Ask someone whose been divorced! I forgot to add religion to that list. If it was gay civil union, there would be far less outcry or interest. Some gay marriage

Ask someone whose been divorced! I forgot to add religion to that list. If it was gay civil union, there would be far less outcry or interest. Some gay marriage campaigners are for religious recognition, and that's a hard battle. I don't think marriage in its current form as a relgious, legal and government institution is that great, and I don't think getting corporations involved is going to improve it. Marriage is certainly not the only way to ensure legal rights or protections for people. That what's married people are, just people. As an institution, marriage interferes with that. In fact where I live, marriage grants some legal rights, like cheaper taxes, but takes away others from married women, who don't receive our equivalent of 'social security' if their partner is still working and they are unemployed. That and social conventions around divorce, which has quite a high rate, can make Marriage a miserable institution for more than half of the people who have got involved in it. In times past, Marriage was used as an enforcer of policies that kept women under the thumb of a male hierarchy, and that cannot be denied. In the present day, I think alternatives can and should be sought, where these external forces such as corporations, governments, relgions and corporations cannot interfere with people's private lives to push their institutional agendas. One way to achieve this would be to ban different treatment for married couples versus normal people, banning outright is too extreme, I was being flippant.