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Well, I know I'm probably a minority in saying this, but I'm disappointed - not because I don't think everyone should have access to the government rights attac

Well, I know I'm probably a minority in saying this, but I'm disappointed - not because I don't think everyone should have access to the government rights attached to marriage, but because it seems our country doesn't actually want to fix problems at the root. What is the root problem? People on both sides of the debate agree (if given the option) that the government probably never should have messed with marriage, at least not as the cultural/religious thing that it is. In a nation where we care so much about the separation of church (broadly defined to include ideologies that may not be formal religions) and state, I don't understand why we're seeking to only expand that connection. What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union (or a similar phrase with no significant religious/cultural attachment).

jamesrcole 11y ago
As far as I can tell, on a societal level incremental change is the only sort of change that tends to happen. On a larger time-frame bigger shifts tends to come about as the result of lots of incremental changes.
iovrthoughtthis 11y ago
I am relieved that this is the top post on this thread. I feel like this is another case statement in the giant switch that is government legislation and that the god class that is government could do with factoring out the freedom for individuals to voluntarily associate.
imaginenore 11y ago
Modern marriage in the US is a civil union that has nothing to do with any religion, and the rights are already defined. Notice that you have to apply to get married in the government office. Whether you have your ceremony in some church or elsewhere or not have it at all is your choice, and affects absolutely nothing. What you're suggesting is that we rename "marriage" into "civil union" and do the same with all the laws and precedents. It's an expensive and stupid proposition, all in the name of dealing with some hurt feelings of religious fanatics that try to get their hands into the government business.
hobarrera 11y ago
Indeed. IMHO, I should be able to share with one (or more) people all the rights that marriage currently grants without it somehow being linked to an ancient religious ritual, even if only be name. Marriage should be handled as religious rituals and nothing state-related at all.
anonbanker 11y ago
Toasting in epic bread.
williamle8300 11y ago
I think it's trickier than that because tax laws are deeply intertwined with institutions like marriage.
eropple 11y ago
> What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union (or a similar phrase with no significant religious/cultural attachment). Sure. And that was not in the cards. What you want is not on the table and likely never will be. But expanding the rights of people because of basic fairness is a step in the process of making the lives of our fellow Americans better. Asking gay people to wait for a unicorn is bullshit. Please don't be That Guy. Ideological purity is so often the enemy of making the world better.
- kefka 11y ago
  > Asking gay people to wait for a unicorn is bullshit. Please don't be That Guy. Ideological purity is so often the enemy of making the world better. But, why not? I'm a male. And I'm bisexual and polyamorus. I understand, and accept if a family wants to have 3 adults. Or 4 adults. I'm even OK if children are raised in that atmosphere. Right now, there are rules and restrictions on polygamy (which is a subset of polyamory) mainly created for the Mormons in the 18 and early 1900s. Doing as the GP said would have these archaic rules also overturned.
  - estel 11y ago
    > Doing as the GP said would have these archaic rules also overturned. But at the expense of meaning that some couples wouldn't be able to marry, for, what - the next decade? Fifty years? And it's not as if a broader change to the meaning of marriage is off of the cards as a result of this - let's take the wins as they come.
  - eropple 11y ago
    > I understand, and accept if a family wants to have 3 adults. Or 4 adults. I'm even OK if children are raised in that atmosphere. I'm with you here. But expecting same-sex couples to suffer for poly folks is not copacetic. The cat's out of the bag, and the line will continue to move. And that's a good thing. > Doing as the GP said would have these archaic rules also overturned. Doing as the GGP said would have nothing be done, in hopes that something was eventually done. Politics is the art of the possible. Don't pass up victories that are on the table.
nostromo 11y ago
I'm gay and I agree with you. But, it's not fair to ask gay people to wait around until marriage is removed from our entire legal system (taxes, immigration, property rights, family law, custody...). So in the mean time marriage equality is a much easier fix. Maybe someday there will be a ruling based on the Equal Protections Clause that bans treating married people differently than unmarried people under the law. Wouldn't that be interesting?
- JakeAl 11y ago
  I'd say in the laws the government should simply recognize all unions as civil unions, leave marriage to your "religion" but I still agree that discrimination based on relationship status is wrong. Every individual should be able to specify who can visit them in a hospital, who is entitled to be the beneficiary of any social security benefits etc. Social Security and health care is dooming this nation and there's a clear timeline for it's demise unless the way they are handled changes, so maybe inheriting government benefits should go away and everyone should only be entitled to what was deducted from their own checks or willed to them by others. The US is looking at austerity in 10 years max, 5 years minimum and the people are too busy sticking up for their favorite party like sports fans on a bus arguing about astroturf and logos while the bus goes over a cliff.
- brownegg 11y ago
  I can't upvote this hard enough. OP is right in my mind, but.... I'm straight (and divorced), and we got married for many of the same reasons that LGBT folks want to--it makes sense. Visitation rights, inheritance, tax treatment, etc. It's unlikely that marriage would be removed as something of concern to lawmakers--has that kind of thing ever happened anywhere, any time, any way? I respect OP's opinion, but it's ivory tower and we're talking about real people right now. possibly unnecessary edit: just want to reiterate that I think OP is _right_, it's just not practical, and I'll sacrifice rightness for a rather-large "quick and dirty win".
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    My impression is that OP wants the current rights from marriage to be part of civil unions instead, not for said rights to be eradicated outright. The former sounds like a more reasonable position and would address your (and the parent commenter's) concerns.
beering 11y ago
But you know that the gov't is not going to just drop marriage any time soon, so it's good that this is happening. Would you rather continue the (imo) injustice in pursuit of a pie-in-the-sky reform?
jasonjei 11y ago
What's shocking to me is that we need permission from the state to marry, whether gay or straight. Why do we need the blessing of the government to marry anyway? We can have kids without permission from the state (so long as you aren't in China), why do we need to ask for permission and "apply for marriage"? In theory, applying for marriage implies the government could deny a marriage, gay or straight. Why do we implicitly give this power to the government?
- lukifer 11y ago
  One of the most brilliant ideas I've heard on the subject is a couple of proposed constitutional amendments stating that (a) your body is your personal property, and (b) you have an inalienable right to define who is a member of your family. When framed in that way, even most social conservatives would agree with the underlying principles.
  - tommorris 11y ago
    > (b) you have an inalienable right to define who is a member of your family So if Charles Manson decides you are his wife now, you don't get much of a say in it. Sounds awesome.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
    Then what is there to prevent two people who've never even met in person from agreeing to be "married" for tax purposes.
    - jasonjei 11y ago
      What's to prevent two people who've met in person from agreeing to be "married" for tax purposes? Marriage fraud is marriage fraud--an application for marriage doesn't prevent that even presenting themselves before court officers. However, there's a whole discussion on how tax benefits for married couples is in violation of the equal protection clause...
MichaelGG 11y ago
Correct. And the restriction on two people is also a cheap hack. It should be more like an LLC where multiple entities join for tax and other concerns. Full stop.
- mkr-hn 11y ago
  "Will you form a corporation with me?" doesn't have the same ring to it.
  - werber 11y ago
    I think it's a little nicer...
cafard 11y ago
Stop defining marriage of any form? Isn't it shorthand for a collection of rights and duties that would be inconvenient to spell out by other means?
bighi 11y ago
But marriage is not a religious thing. Before most popular religions were created, marriage was already old. For cultural reasons, it's popular to do a RELIGIOUS CEREMONY along the marriage. What's religious there is the ceremony, not the marriage. You can have religious ceremonies without marriage, and marriages without the religious ceremony. Two independent concepts that, by happenstance, often come together.
- wyager 11y ago
  Even if it's just a social ceremony, the government should not give it special legal allowance. The government doesn't recognize Quinceañeras or bar mitzvahs. If you believe that marriage has an important legal function, it's also not fair to preclude polygamists from getting those same legal utilities. A much better generalized solution is to expand the purview of contract law to allow it to do everything marriage does.
  - bane 11y ago
    > bar mitzvahs The government does recognize a legal "coming of age" in several cases (at least in the U.S.). - Driving a car (restricted at 15 years and some months, open at 16) - Entering the Majority (18) - Can enter the military (18, or 17 with some restrictions) - Can have Sex (rules vary by state, but is generally 16-18 with various limits) - Can drink (21) etc. It just so happens that these legal coming-of-age points don't specifically align with any religious coming-of-age. The two are divested from each other due to various pre-existing cultural forces. But it's completely conceivable in some alternate universe that the two are conflated and one enters the majority legally at the same time as going through a "traditional" Sacrament of Confirmation.
    - vacri 11y ago
      At first I thought of it jokingly, but it is actually related - you can add to this list minimum age for politicians: representatives (25), senators (30), and potus (35). It doesn't affect many people, of course, but it is age-based freedoms implemented by the guv.
  - 11y ago
shas3 11y ago
It is about Government benefits primarily. The government incentivizes marriage through tax breaks, etc. So the definition of marriage matters in administering these benefits. The legislative branch should first start with redefining the eligibility for these benefits to keep religion out.
verisimilidude 11y ago
Marriage is really important to people. If you define the legal part of that as "civil union", people will add new cultural/religious significance to that new definition. Then when polygamy or whatever becomes popular in 2115, the conservatives of that time will cry out about the "sanctity of only two people in civil union, the way it's always been!" And around the circle we go. What's important today is that our country has expanded our liberties and rights, and a lot of people can now live fuller and more secure lives as a result.
- bdowling 11y ago
  2115? Something tells me it won't be nearly that long.
bargl 11y ago
I have a question about this. I'm not saying I feel this way, but does this mean that religions that are opposed to gay marriage have to perform marriages for people who are gay? I.E. Catholics? The only reason I ask is because many Catholics I know say this is basically her argument against gay marriage. They don't always care about civil unions (some do) as long as it doesn't affect their church.
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  No, they won't have to. I'll speak to this from the perspective of the Catholic Church, and how they'll avoid having to perform same sex marriages. The Catholic Church can already deny anyone a church/religious ceremony. Suppose I'm a Catholic and was married within the Church and later divorced. If I don't receive an annulment, the Church will not allow me to remarry within the Church. I can still go elsewhere, but the Church will not perform the marriage or acknowledge it as valid (a later annulment can get the Church to change its stance on this marriage). Similarly, the Church (in the US) typically requires 6 months of marriage preparation. If you refuse to go through it, they will deny you a marriage within the Church (a friend of mine went through this last year, they were impatient and couldn't wait the extra 4 months apparently). With regards to same-sex marriage, the Church's stance will not change (certainly not in our lifetimes), they'll continue to view same-sex relationships as sinful. Consequently they cannot, from their perspective, sanctify a marriage of that sort. This is not, fundamentally, different from the other reasons they use to deny people a Church marriage. Edit: Regarding your second paragraph, yeah, I hear that a lot. But they're ignoring the cases where the Church already denies marriages. I already had this discussion with a coworker who happens to be a Catholic deacon this morning. It's frustrating that so many Catholics (and others) don't realize that they've already got the freedom to deny anyone access to the sacraments. I can be refused communion by a priest if he knows that I'm an (unrepentant) philanderer or drug dealer or murderer or that I've been excommunicated by a bishop. They are not obligated to perform baptisms just because someone asks if those asking aren't willing to go through the steps and agree to the things the Church requires. They won't ordain me just because I walk up to a bishop in a cathedral and ask to be ordained. A church marriage is a similar sacrament that the Church has laid out requirements for, and refusing to comply with those means you won't get married in the Church.
deleted 11y ago
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nly 11y ago
I agree, but I believe it's seen as more complicated to reclassify existing unions in law. The UK recently promoted 'civil unions' to 'marriage' status rather than downgrading traditional heterosexual marriages to unions.
drcube 11y ago
Marriage has always been a government institution. Religion co-opted it for themselves at a later time. This "leave marriage to the churches where they belong" cry is disingenuous. Marriage is about a contract between individuals. It provides government granted privileges in regards to taxes, healthcare, inheritance, court testimony and child custody. It has nothing to do with religion. If you want to have a religious ceremony to celebrate and "sanctify" your government granted marriage, so be it. But don't pretend this is a religious tradition meddled with by government. It is a government institution that has been meddled with by religion since before religion and government were separate.
- edko 11y ago
  There was almost no difference between government and religion when marriage originated, so it makes little sense to argue who invented it. Was Moses a political or religious leader? Were pharaohs political rulers or gods? Etc. What is very clear is that, in our society, civil and religious marriage are two different things that share a common name, and that one should have no influence over the other.
  - drcube 11y ago
    It doesn't matter who invented it. It matters what it is. And marriage is fundamentally a government institution. It concerns laws and legally granted privileges. If there's a sacred component, let the churches keep that part, but that's not what the SCOTUS ruled on, and it's not what millions across the country have been demanding for decades.
    - humanrebar 11y ago
      > And marriage is fundamentally a government institution. That's nonsense. I'd stay married to my wife even if it were illegal.
      - imaginenore 11y ago
        Not legally you won't. Your "marriage" will be equivalent to "monogamous relationship", that's about it. No visitation rights. No tax breaks. No inheritance rights. No pension rights.
Spooky23 11y ago
I think that's a flawed assertion. Civil marriage has been around forever, and is nearly universal in western society. Civil Union / domestic partnership is a compromise solution that addresses the realities of modern society. You get the benefits of partnership without involving assets. Marriage has always been a more binding thing, and for good reason.
ohitsdom 11y ago
I agree, but I don't think you can be disappointed from this ruling. Getting the government out of marriage is not an option for the court to take, and it wasn't the issue before them. If we want government out of marriage, it'd have to be done through Congress and a reformed tax code.
- ctdonath 11y ago
  Some states have started looking at dropping the formal recognition of marriage entirely. Increasingly devoid of any meaning, and given enough harassment for limiting who it applies to (consider, say, 12 people and a goat), comes a point where the state decides there is simply no point in recognizing the institution at all.
  - __z 11y ago
    WHICH states are considering dropping the formal recognition of marriage entirely? That sounds extremely implausible.
    - ctdonath 11y ago
      Louisiana for one.
ProAm 11y ago
Marriage is not about religion or personal belief in the eyes of the government. It's a business contract that has everything to do with money.
yes_or_gnome 11y ago
Unions? That sounds like some commie bullshit. /s I agree, but that's just not going to happen. Besides, it's tom-ay-to/tom-ah-to.
kisna72 11y ago
I agree with you. An example of how bad things can get, we can look at ISIS. people governing a with religious rules will never go any good, mostly because religious rules were created a very long time ago for a completely different world.
- nathan_long 11y ago
  That's an extremely selective example to support your view. For an example of the opposite, look at the Khmer Rouge, which governed with a specifically anti-religious stance, committed genocide and torture, and starved a large portion of their population. Or consider Stalin and Mao, who killed tens of millions each, or even the French Revolutionaries, who killed tens of thousands without trial. Religion is not the source of evil, either in individuals or in governments. Evil is in people's hearts. Sometimes it is expressed via religious action, unfortunately. But the two should not be conflated.
  - Loughla 11y ago
    "I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people; you are wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides." Havelock Vetinari
mikeash 11y ago
What's the difference between a "civil union" and a secular marriage? It seems like the separation you wish for is already here, effectively. You can get a religious marriage without a government-recognized marriage, or you can get a government-marriage without a religious marriage. If you want, you can do both. Looks to me like the only difference is the name.
- jasonlotito 11y ago
  > Looks to me like the only difference is the name. That's literally what it is. People could get married in all 50 states before this ruling. At issue was whether it was officially recognized or not, which has been fixed.
  - metasean 11y ago
    > At issue was whether it was officially recognized or not, which has been fixed. They can now be legally recognized. It is still up to churches whether to religiously recognize them.
Chinjut 11y ago
Marriage is not primarily a religious institution. Many non-religious people get married, and see no incongruity in it.
nickhalfasleep 11y ago
The Government only got into the Marriage business when they wanted to start denying it.. to interracial couples.
- rodgerd 11y ago
  You aren't even wrong.
  - nickhalfasleep 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_Un...
    - rodgerd 11y ago
      Just as well there were no laws concerning marriage before then in the United States.
kaonashi 11y ago
What functional difference does it make?
jasonlotito 11y ago
That's what happened. Your problem is that they are using the word marriage. Prior to this, gays could marry in all 50 states. Just not all 50 states would recognize that marriage. And if the government doesn't recognize your marriage, does it really matter what religion or personal tradition you are following? Apparently, it does. There is nothing religious about this. It's merely the a similar phrase, one that happens to have religious or cultural attachment. > but because it seems our country doesn't actually want to fix problems at the root. That's because it can't be fixed at the root. The root has already happened, and the only people with a problem with the fix now are people who think this has anything to do with religion, which it does not.
ctdonath 11y ago
The state has a vested interest in procreation (i.e.: creation of new citizens & taxpayers as others die off), so takes an interest in "marriage" as a means for facilitating the most efficient & effective means of promoting procreation, doing so by giving special benefits in return for parents taking on special obligations. Expanding the beneficiaries of those benefits to those to whom there is absolutely no chance (to the point of the notion being preposterous based on just 2 literal bits of information) of procreation is giving benefits to those whom will give nothing back in return. The problem, as you sort of touch on, is that between evolution, religion & politics we've added abstractions & tangents to the issue, making most people think it's really about feelings etc instead of the base issue of procreation.
- stephencanon 11y ago
  My cousin and the two kids that he and his husband adopted beg to differ. As do many, many other kids who might otherwise be in the foster care system consuming the resources of the state. The state has an interest in stable household formation, full stop.
- saturdaysaint 11y ago
  Right, so we should add fertility tests to remove other people that have no chance of procreating from the marriage pool. We should also eliminate many of the benefits if couples don't produce children after a certain age and maybe even eliminate tax benefits after a certain number of years since a married couple's last child. Thanks for bringing this discussion back to the true soul of marriage: procreation incentives.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Terr_ 11y ago
  So you're saying the government's "vested interest" should let it prohibit/nullify the marriages of heterosexual couples don't (or can't) pop out a child? What about couples whose prospective offspring would be... undesirable to the state? Eugenics? No, it's not about procreation, it's about social structures. Adoption is always a possibility.
lettergram 11y ago
I actually was somewhat angry that this didn't happen, the supreme court has the right to alter laws in the way mentioned. Certainly, specific aspects of the rights/laws protected under marriage would need to change. Case in point, visitation rights for children. However, that could be altered more simply by creating visitation rights "emotionally invested parties" or something (which also would have worked for the gay or straight communities). The fact is, all legalizing gay marriage does at a national level is reduce states rights. Yes, there is an emotional argument, that gay couples should be recognized, and I agree they should. However, there were many means to that end, and they chose one that appeased the masses, but perhaps was "less correct," in the sense that it is probably wrong for the government to interfere with any sort of bond between people in private.
FrankenPC 11y ago
Is it possible that LGBT marriage rights were officially recognized because it was becoming apparent that the next step was to strip religion out of the discourse? Thereby losing a valuable beachhead in society? Nah. To conspiracy theory-ish.
- FrankenPC 11y ago
  Due to the down votes, I feel compelled to clarify: I meant as opposed to removing marriage from contractual language and using civil union instead.
tommorris 11y ago
> People on both sides of the debate agree (if given the option) that the government probably never should have messed with marriage, at least not as the cultural/religious thing that it is. No, I think religion shouldn't have messed with a societal institution. Religion has no more right over it than the state does. The state makes the laws, not religion.
thoman23 11y ago
If the governmental/legal aspects of marriage are captured under "civil union", what exactly is "marriage" at that point? A pretty ceremony at a church? For all practical purposes, marriage IS a secular contract between two people that helps mediate the rights of two people in a wide variety of domains. To me saying gay people can't marry is akin to saying gay people can't form LLCs. Maybe the religious side should come up with a new name for their ceremonies to avoid some of the confusion? How about "religious union"? (whatever that means)
ap22213 11y ago
Alternatively, religions can just rename 'marriage' to 'holy marriage' or something.
zzleeper 11y ago
Well you have the legal/civil marriage and the religious marriage. You can call it "civil union" or whatever you want, but the important thing are the rights attached and that's what this ruling is about. Nothing to do with church, just the civil part.
hacknat 11y ago
Your sentiment, while admirable, is a libertarian pipe dream. Even the most liberal countries in the world still get involved in marriage. While I am by no means a social conservative, I do agree with conservatives that the family is the foundational institution of civil society (and a lot of anthropological research supports this argument). Governments will be more or less involved with it to some degree, both to foster it economically and encourage it socially. To see the American social contract as having been set up to never have to encounter or acknowledge any spiritual/religious institutions is bad history, we have simply always held that the government cannot be in the practice of encouraging one over the other. Taking the long view, conservatives (and others) should be rejoicing. This ruling is a broad expansion of the definition of what the government will recognize as a family, a definition that is of consequence to numerous helpful social programs, and an affirmation of what family is in civil society. The ruling will have enormous social benefits for our society.
- pekk 11y ago
  There is no reason why governments should be involved in it, except that people can't keep their grubby hands off of it. Doesn't make a lot of sense for us to subsidize people to do something which they are supposedly doing because they want to. The only reason there are all these fancy tax breaks is because politicians get ahead saying they are "for families". It isn't the government's job to "acknowledge" every religious custom you have at church by also writing it into law or something. The government has its own jobs.
  - tommorris 11y ago
    > Doesn't make a lot of sense for us to subsidize people to do something which they are supposedly doing because they want to. Sure it does. Long-term couples tend to take care of each other's health and wellbeing. Marriage is a way of recognising that long-term care relationship. In countries with any kind of government funded or subsidised health system (or even a private health system based on insurance), those benefits of being married are costs that would otherwise be borne by the rest of society. When I'm old, having a partner to look after me means I'm less likely to need to go to hospital or need doctor's visits. I'm less likely to be unhappy, so more likely to be economically productive. If I need to take time off work, or retrain, or whatever, two partners are able to rely on each other for both financial and moral support. Social conservatives are right in the sense that marriage is for plenty of people a form of social "glue" that holds people together. The state has good reason to want people to be held together like that - because it makes citizens happier, more productive, less likely to need public handouts, more likely to be able to raise children successfully or produce taxable wealth - and so on and so on. It'd be difficult to measure the economic benefit of marriage to the state, but the actual economic benefit of being married is pretty minimal (estate/inheritance taxes seem like the biggest benefit) compared to the benefit to society and to the state. Most if not all of those things that marriage does are also applicable to same-sex couples, incidentally.
rayiner 11y ago
I find that argument ironic. Whatever religious connotations it may or may not have, marriage is a legal construct. It's an arrangement created to deal with a whole host of practical legal problems: inheritance, property rights, etc. Even before modern government, when organized religion administered marriage, it was a function of the legal side of religion.
rodgerd 11y ago
> government probably never should have messed with marriage, at least not as the cultural/religious thing that it is. Marriage is not and was never a religious "thing" in the English legal tradition.
justforthis123 11y ago
I don't know if others felt it but my main feeling was that of anger. After watching the great joy and thankfulness (why should they being thankful!) from the LGBT community the only thought I could have was - How are we letting this situation to exist where elected and non-elected groups of people can decide to restrict or 'grant' joy to such a vast set of humanity.
ebiggs 11y ago
I used to think this was a good approach to take, to just eliminate marriage, but I eventually changed my mind, and here's why: This isn't a matter of state and religion it's a matter of state and CULTURE. You need to take it into consideration with the idea of kinship bonds as a whole. Take for example the kinship role of fatherhood. This is something the state is rightly committed to taking a stance on, and there's a branch of law (family) to deal with rights, obligations, etc around this kinship bond. What is a father? Is it a biological father who has not given up his rights? Is it a biological father who has no custody rights? Is it a biological father who has terminated all rights? IS it a non-biological father who has adopted? Is it a step-father who has a different name and doesn't have custodial rights but has been called daddy as long as the child can remember? Is it the man who's name is on the birth certificate but whose dna proves it's not his? Or should we abandon the word father all together and say "civil custodial guardian." instead to try and separate culture from the state? The separation of culture from state signifies what you hear all the time on fox news: a culture war. There was a culture war around civil rights 50 years ago too, and now nobody thinks twice about it. Eventually the same will be true around gay rights. The idea that you have to step around terms like wife, husband, or marriage - because they get folks riled up would be like stepping around "father" because it might get some folks riled up - it just doesn't happen to as much right now. One could argue that marriage is an affinity kinship bond, not a descent kinship bond - and thus fundamentally different than parenthood. But that's a biological distinction - not really a civil distinction given all the tremendous amount of legal work that has gone into removing and assigning parental rights for both biological and non biological children. Marriage isn't a dirty word, it's not a religious word, it's a cultural word that describes an incredibly important affinity kinship bond. A society with plural cultures does not require that we rename everything under sterile newspeak words.
pohl 11y ago
What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form... It's not a difficult thought experiment to imagine the consequences of this: hospitals refusing to allow visitation from people who are – but they do not accept as – members of your family. Employers refusing to extend health coverage, etc. Government will have a place here so long as there is dispute over the definition of "immediate family".
mrgoldenbrown 11y ago
It sounds like you have bought into the fox news talking point that "marriage" is fundamentally a religious word and civil union is a legal thing. Merriam Webster's first definition talks about marriage as a union in law. It doesn't even mention religion at all in fact. Dictionay.com mentions both, though "legally" is mention before "religiously". The English word marriage, in the United States, can refer to either the government approved legal contract, or a religious ceremony. If we want to separate the church and state, let's invent a new word to refer to the religious aspects.
bippi 11y ago
You're talking centuries of property and estate rights laws in all states and counties. It would be a freakin' mess. But yeah, this ruling eschews poly relationships.
SwellJoe 11y ago
I agree with you on the end goal, but perfect is the enemy of the good, and I could not more strongly disagree about waiting until that perfect solution is on the table. Having every gay couple wait another couple of decades until everybody gets their head out of their ass to have basic rights like visitation of their partner in the hospital, inheritance rights, co-parental rights of children, etc. is an unacceptable moral compromise, and it is heartless to demand that millions of gay Americans make that sacrifice so that the law can look like I want it to. We still have a long way to go to recognize all of the shapes relationships take (I'm non-monogamous, for example, and don't really expect to see multi-party legal unions in my lifetime), but making one huge group of people suffer while those other things get sorted out is an ethically untenable option, for me. And, honestly, I suspect this is a step in that direction...the religious loons will continue to campaign for changes, because of this. And, we can continue to push for reform.
- ElComradio 11y ago
  The perfect being the enemy of the good is one thing. It's something else when the compromise actually reinforces the root problem. We now have reinforced the idea that government gets to decide who can get married. Wrong direction.
  - SwellJoe 11y ago
    And, so, until we correct the misunderstanding gay people should be excluded from being able to share custody of their children, be beneficiaries of social security, medicare, insurance, retirement plans, and visitation of the partners when in the hospital, etc., all things that heterosexual married couples currently enjoy under the law? That's the wrong direction, and it is unconstitutional. The reality is that the world just got nicer for a lot of people. The theoretical "reinforced" root problem effects literally no one. Before today, that root problem existed. It still exists today. There is no scenario today for real people that is worse than yesterday. I'm not willing to throw gay couples under the bus because it doesn't suit me that the government has a role in marriage. It has had a role in marriage for longer than you or I have been on this earth. This doesn't strengthen that notion in any way. The government has been granted no new power over your relationships than it had yesterday (just because you or I don't like that it has any say in relationships is not what is up for discussion), and it is disingenuous, or at least misdirection, to suggest otherwise.
bcheung 11y ago
Equally the government should not discriminate based on whether you are married or not for tax purposes. They need to treat everyone the same in the eyes of the law.
- millstone 11y ago
  What would this look like? My wife has no income because she is raising our children. Should she be eligible for welfare? Do I owe gift tax if she orders a pizza from our joint checking account?
  - Retra 11y ago
    Well, naturally, that only implies the welfare laws and taxes should change as well. For instance, whether you get welfare or not shouldn't simply be determined by your income, but by an actual analysis of your circumstances: it should be provided based on actual need, not numbers. The problem here is that it is a very major change, and it may cost a lot and take a long time and a lot of consideration, and that might make it politically untenable.
justonepost 11y ago
Yeah, absolutely. I think Christians should have their own concept of marriage, but it should have nothing to do with the state.
akssri 11y ago
Exactly. I think the libertarian way to go would be to limit the role of the Govt. to enable Tax breaks for spouses, and other impersonal things.
- __z 11y ago
  It's a practical matter. "Getting married" is very easy and requires almost no expense and only a little bit of time. You don't need to plan at all for a civil marriage, just sign some paperwork. Drafting all the documents you'll need (will, medical directive, etc.) without a marriage takes lots of time and money (lawyer fees). Writing marriage into laws is a way to save families time and money and make everything simple for them.
hawleyal 11y ago
Trouble is, state governments have been messing with it. This is an attempt to stop it.
deleted 11y ago
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threatofrain 11y ago
Why should the government stop addressing marriage, which is a cross-cultural structure involving people officially declaring their relationship to a community, sometimes via a legal vehicle? Marriage has been independently constructed by many peoples with many variations. Often times we talk about Christian marriage but not Chinese or Greek marriage. Why do you frame marriage as principally religious, and something the government should keep out of? There's one way in which governments have screwed up, including state governments, and that's allowing priests to have legal authority. The wedding industry is a revenue stream. In what other way does religion have relation to marriage? Through the laws of Moses, transferred from God? The government shouldn't be afraid of words. The government should feel free to not trespass upon religion by creating as many alternative marriages as it wants. The government can create a "high-fecundity during wartime" category of marriage if it wants, and grant extra tax benefits. That's a matter of secular policy. "I really suggest the A41 form for marriage for your case in particular. My cousin and his girlfriend got married under A41 and they've structured their finances like so and so."
ajays 11y ago
> What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage ... Sure. But gay marriage and getting government out of marriage altogether are not mutually exclusive. Government can still get out of the business of marriage (and divorce). Please feel free to petition your legislators to pursue that approach. In the meantime, it is only fair that the gays enjoy the same rights that the rest of us do.
cmurf 11y ago
There's no possible way this can happen. There's zero political will by two branches of government at the federal level, times 50 at the state level. And the Supreme Court can't do it on its own, because it would have to reverse itself on over a dozen cases in 100+ years specifically stating marriage is a right. And the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights considers marriage a right, Article 16.
ryanSrich 11y ago
It has far less todo with what people want than it does with just taking what you can get. If gay couples had to wait around for the government to change the way it handles marriage they might as well just count on never having the option to join each other in a civil union. Your ideas are great in theory but they don't really fit into the corrupt framework of modern day politics (or even throughout written history).
sbassi 11y ago
Why should the government stop defining marriage? what is wrong with this?
ggchappell 11y ago
Correct me if I'm misunderstanding things, but your comment suggests that you think marriage started as a religious thing and then later became a legal matter. This is not the case, at least in western/european culture. In fact, the reverse is true. Marriage was not thought of as a religious institution until pretty late in the game -- certainly not until after 1000. (For example, marriage was not declared a sacrament until the Council of Trent in the 1500s.)
crystaln 11y ago
"the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union" I don't see this as anything other than arguing a trivial semantic distinction - that we should use the word "union" for government rights granted to couples instead of "marriage"? Even if you are right about a slightly better word, who cares? What is the effective difference? Religious and government marriages are different. A "marriage" license issued by a government is indistinguishable from a civil union license. Why grant religions a monopoly on the use of the word. In all honesty, this is a non-sensical frankenstein remnant of the separate but equal argument for marriage and civil union. It really has no value.
snambi 11y ago
Its a just marriage. But the noise created by politicians and media is out of proportion. Now that we have a verdict, hope all the noise goes away.
skywhopper 11y ago
"Marriage" is the term under which those rights are defined. Marriage is not a religious construct. Rather, religion and culture are deeply intertwined, but you seem to be accepting the Christian Right's assertion that it alone can define marriage. But I reject that claim. They are free to place their own restrictions on marriages their churches will endorse, but they are not free to define my marriage. Turning the word "marriage" over to "religion" (and ignoring the millions of religious people who fully support same-sex marriage) does more harm than good to reaching our goal of equality.
- XorNot 11y ago
  Religions don't have a monopoly on words. The government, and the people, have a right to name things whatever they want. If the only thing holding your institution up was it's name, then you had other problems to start with.
intopieces 11y ago
>People on both sides of the debate agree (if given the option) that the government probably never should have messed with marriage, at least not as the cultural/religious thing that it is. They don't actually believe this, they only say they do. Take any person who says "Get the government out of marriage!" and ask them if they'd like to pay higher taxes and give up the rights that come with marriage. They'll say, "Well, no..." Simply put, the libertarian cry you suggest is red herring. It's a way to disguise a disgust for gay marriage by making it sounds like you're for "smaller government." If they really believed what they said, they'd have gotten married in a church and then just never filed the documents with the state. Remember, you can get married in a church and not have it recognized by state. Gays were doing it for years.
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
Not until the meaning of marriage changes in people's heads too. For some years my gay friends were "civil unionised" and I always had to do this two step in my head from the words to the meaning I had for life long loving partnership that still has blazing rows and .... You know - Marriage. So, this is not about religion (really this is from a country where most people under 60 attending church are doing so they can get their kids into the associated school) - it's not about the tax laws, it's about what society sees, expects and hands out to a married couple. It makes a difference - there is a difference between a couple who are "to all intents and purposes" married and a couple who are married. Because for the 95% straight relationships out there we read something into why that couple has not gotten married. And we are then forced to read the same into a gay couple. That's why marriage matters. Living together is not quite the same. And we know it.
bsder 11y ago
> What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union (or a similar phrase with no significant religious/cultural attachment). Hopefully this ruling will cause exactly that. If the churches don't want same-sex "marriage", they now MUST lobby their legislatures to separate marriage from the civil contracts that it is conflated with. Until this ruling, nobody was going to take up the task. States that might have done this were already legalizing it anyway. States that would be opposed weren't going to spend the time and energy to fight their own constituents. Now, there will be motivation in the most conservative states to actually get that done.
analog31 11y ago
What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union (or a similar phrase with no significant religious/cultural attachment). The state that I live in passed a constitutional amendment specifically prohibiting civil unions. The only remaining recourse was the supreme court.
mirimir 11y ago
Yes, we want separation of church and state. But this decision says nothing about church. It affects only the state's role in marriage. Here's a concrete example. Two people of the same sex want to marry. They get a marriage license. They find someone who's qualified and willing to marry them. They submit paperwork to the state, proving that they're married, and they become legally married. The Supreme Court ruling doesn't require someone who's qualified to marry them, unless that qualified person is a state official. It doesn't, for example, require a Catholic priest to marry them. The Catholic church can still prohibit marriages between people of the same sex. However, for purposes of employment, or involving government contracts, the Catholic church must recognize all legal marriages, including those between people of the same sex. But how much of a change does that actually represent? Before this decision, the Catholic church had to recognize legal non-Catholic marriages of all sorts for those purposes.
chx 11y ago
Marriage as an institution dates from the Neolithic. Nothing to do with religion. Source: http://www.econ.ku.dk/okojwe/filer/MEHR/adshade_kaiser_10_08.pdf http://www.econ.ku.dk/okojwe/filer/MEHR/adshade_kaiser_10_08...

jamesrcole 11y ago

As far as I can tell, on a societal level incremental change is the only sort of change that tends to happen. On a larger time-frame bigger shifts tends to come about as the result of lots of incremental changes.

iovrthoughtthis 11y ago

I am relieved that this is the top post on this thread. I feel like this is another case statement in the giant switch that is government legislation and that the god class that is government could do with factoring out the freedom for individuals to voluntarily associate.

imaginenore 11y ago

Modern marriage in the US is a civil union that has nothing to do with any religion, and the rights are already defined. Notice that you have to apply to get married in the government office. Whether you have your ceremony in some church or elsewhere or not have it at all is your choice, and affects absolutely nothing. What you're suggesting is that we rename "marriage" into "civil union" and do the same with all the laws and precedents. It's an expensive and stupid proposition, all in the name of dealing with some hurt feelings of religious fanatics that try to get their hands into the government business.

hobarrera 11y ago

Indeed. IMHO, I should be able to share with one (or more) people all the rights that marriage currently grants without it somehow being linked to an ancient religious ritual, even if only be name. Marriage should be handled as religious rituals and nothing state-related at all.

anonbanker 11y ago

Toasting in epic bread.

williamle8300 11y ago

I think it's trickier than that because tax laws are deeply intertwined with institutions like marriage.

eropple 11y ago

> What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union (or a similar phrase with no significant religious/cultural attachment). Sure. And that was not in the cards. What you want is not on the table and likely never will be. But expanding the rights of people because of basic fairness is a step in the process of making the lives of our fellow Americans better. Asking gay people to wait for a unicorn is bullshit. Please don't be That Guy. Ideological purity is so often the enemy of making the world better.

kefka 11y ago
> Asking gay people to wait for a unicorn is bullshit. Please don't be That Guy. Ideological purity is so often the enemy of making the world better. But, why not? I'm a male. And I'm bisexual and polyamorus. I understand, and accept if a family wants to have 3 adults. Or 4 adults. I'm even OK if children are raised in that atmosphere. Right now, there are rules and restrictions on polygamy (which is a subset of polyamory) mainly created for the Mormons in the 18 and early 1900s. Doing as the GP said would have these archaic rules also overturned.
- estel 11y ago
  > Doing as the GP said would have these archaic rules also overturned. But at the expense of meaning that some couples wouldn't be able to marry, for, what - the next decade? Fifty years? And it's not as if a broader change to the meaning of marriage is off of the cards as a result of this - let's take the wins as they come.
- eropple 11y ago
  > I understand, and accept if a family wants to have 3 adults. Or 4 adults. I'm even OK if children are raised in that atmosphere. I'm with you here. But expecting same-sex couples to suffer for poly folks is not copacetic. The cat's out of the bag, and the line will continue to move. And that's a good thing. > Doing as the GP said would have these archaic rules also overturned. Doing as the GGP said would have nothing be done, in hopes that something was eventually done. Politics is the art of the possible. Don't pass up victories that are on the table.

nostromo 11y ago

I'm gay and I agree with you. But, it's not fair to ask gay people to wait around until marriage is removed from our entire legal system (taxes, immigration, property rights, family law, custody...). So in the mean time marriage equality is a much easier fix. Maybe someday there will be a ruling based on the Equal Protections Clause that bans treating married people differently than unmarried people under the law. Wouldn't that be interesting?

JakeAl 11y ago
I'd say in the laws the government should simply recognize all unions as civil unions, leave marriage to your "religion" but I still agree that discrimination based on relationship status is wrong. Every individual should be able to specify who can visit them in a hospital, who is entitled to be the beneficiary of any social security benefits etc. Social Security and health care is dooming this nation and there's a clear timeline for it's demise unless the way they are handled changes, so maybe inheriting government benefits should go away and everyone should only be entitled to what was deducted from their own checks or willed to them by others. The US is looking at austerity in 10 years max, 5 years minimum and the people are too busy sticking up for their favorite party like sports fans on a bus arguing about astroturf and logos while the bus goes over a cliff.
brownegg 11y ago
I can't upvote this hard enough. OP is right in my mind, but.... I'm straight (and divorced), and we got married for many of the same reasons that LGBT folks want to--it makes sense. Visitation rights, inheritance, tax treatment, etc. It's unlikely that marriage would be removed as something of concern to lawmakers--has that kind of thing ever happened anywhere, any time, any way? I respect OP's opinion, but it's ivory tower and we're talking about real people right now. possibly unnecessary edit: just want to reiterate that I think OP is _right_, it's just not practical, and I'll sacrifice rightness for a rather-large "quick and dirty win".
- yellowapple 11y ago
  My impression is that OP wants the current rights from marriage to be part of civil unions instead, not for said rights to be eradicated outright. The former sounds like a more reasonable position and would address your (and the parent commenter's) concerns.

beering 11y ago

But you know that the gov't is not going to just drop marriage any time soon, so it's good that this is happening. Would you rather continue the (imo) injustice in pursuit of a pie-in-the-sky reform?

jasonjei 11y ago

What's shocking to me is that we need permission from the state to marry, whether gay or straight. Why do we need the blessing of the government to marry anyway? We can have kids without permission from the state (so long as you aren't in China), why do we need to ask for permission and "apply for marriage"? In theory, applying for marriage implies the government could deny a marriage, gay or straight. Why do we implicitly give this power to the government?

lukifer 11y ago
One of the most brilliant ideas I've heard on the subject is a couple of proposed constitutional amendments stating that (a) your body is your personal property, and (b) you have an inalienable right to define who is a member of your family. When framed in that way, even most social conservatives would agree with the underlying principles.
- tommorris 11y ago
  > (b) you have an inalienable right to define who is a member of your family So if Charles Manson decides you are his wife now, you don't get much of a say in it. Sounds awesome.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
  Then what is there to prevent two people who've never even met in person from agreeing to be "married" for tax purposes.
  - jasonjei 11y ago
    What's to prevent two people who've met in person from agreeing to be "married" for tax purposes? Marriage fraud is marriage fraud--an application for marriage doesn't prevent that even presenting themselves before court officers. However, there's a whole discussion on how tax benefits for married couples is in violation of the equal protection clause...

MichaelGG 11y ago

Correct. And the restriction on two people is also a cheap hack. It should be more like an LLC where multiple entities join for tax and other concerns. Full stop.

mkr-hn 11y ago
"Will you form a corporation with me?" doesn't have the same ring to it.
- werber 11y ago
  I think it's a little nicer...

cafard 11y ago

Stop defining marriage of any form? Isn't it shorthand for a collection of rights and duties that would be inconvenient to spell out by other means?

bighi 11y ago

But marriage is not a religious thing. Before most popular religions were created, marriage was already old. For cultural reasons, it's popular to do a RELIGIOUS CEREMONY along the marriage. What's religious there is the ceremony, not the marriage. You can have religious ceremonies without marriage, and marriages without the religious ceremony. Two independent concepts that, by happenstance, often come together.

wyager 11y ago
Even if it's just a social ceremony, the government should not give it special legal allowance. The government doesn't recognize Quinceañeras or bar mitzvahs. If you believe that marriage has an important legal function, it's also not fair to preclude polygamists from getting those same legal utilities. A much better generalized solution is to expand the purview of contract law to allow it to do everything marriage does.
- bane 11y ago
  > bar mitzvahs The government does recognize a legal "coming of age" in several cases (at least in the U.S.). - Driving a car (restricted at 15 years and some months, open at 16) - Entering the Majority (18) - Can enter the military (18, or 17 with some restrictions) - Can have Sex (rules vary by state, but is generally 16-18 with various limits) - Can drink (21) etc. It just so happens that these legal coming-of-age points don't specifically align with any religious coming-of-age. The two are divested from each other due to various pre-existing cultural forces. But it's completely conceivable in some alternate universe that the two are conflated and one enters the majority legally at the same time as going through a "traditional" Sacrament of Confirmation.
  - vacri 11y ago
    At first I thought of it jokingly, but it is actually related - you can add to this list minimum age for politicians: representatives (25), senators (30), and potus (35). It doesn't affect many people, of course, but it is age-based freedoms implemented by the guv.
- 11y ago

shas3 11y ago

It is about Government benefits primarily. The government incentivizes marriage through tax breaks, etc. So the definition of marriage matters in administering these benefits. The legislative branch should first start with redefining the eligibility for these benefits to keep religion out.

verisimilidude 11y ago

Marriage is really important to people. If you define the legal part of that as "civil union", people will add new cultural/religious significance to that new definition. Then when polygamy or whatever becomes popular in 2115, the conservatives of that time will cry out about the "sanctity of only two people in civil union, the way it's always been!" And around the circle we go. What's important today is that our country has expanded our liberties and rights, and a lot of people can now live fuller and more secure lives as a result.

bdowling 11y ago
2115? Something tells me it won't be nearly that long.

bargl 11y ago

I have a question about this. I'm not saying I feel this way, but does this mean that religions that are opposed to gay marriage have to perform marriages for people who are gay? I.E. Catholics? The only reason I ask is because many Catholics I know say this is basically her argument against gay marriage. They don't always care about civil unions (some do) as long as it doesn't affect their church.

Jtsummers 11y ago
No, they won't have to. I'll speak to this from the perspective of the Catholic Church, and how they'll avoid having to perform same sex marriages. The Catholic Church can already deny anyone a church/religious ceremony. Suppose I'm a Catholic and was married within the Church and later divorced. If I don't receive an annulment, the Church will not allow me to remarry within the Church. I can still go elsewhere, but the Church will not perform the marriage or acknowledge it as valid (a later annulment can get the Church to change its stance on this marriage). Similarly, the Church (in the US) typically requires 6 months of marriage preparation. If you refuse to go through it, they will deny you a marriage within the Church (a friend of mine went through this last year, they were impatient and couldn't wait the extra 4 months apparently). With regards to same-sex marriage, the Church's stance will not change (certainly not in our lifetimes), they'll continue to view same-sex relationships as sinful. Consequently they cannot, from their perspective, sanctify a marriage of that sort. This is not, fundamentally, different from the other reasons they use to deny people a Church marriage. Edit: Regarding your second paragraph, yeah, I hear that a lot. But they're ignoring the cases where the Church already denies marriages. I already had this discussion with a coworker who happens to be a Catholic deacon this morning. It's frustrating that so many Catholics (and others) don't realize that they've already got the freedom to deny anyone access to the sacraments. I can be refused communion by a priest if he knows that I'm an (unrepentant) philanderer or drug dealer or murderer or that I've been excommunicated by a bishop. They are not obligated to perform baptisms just because someone asks if those asking aren't willing to go through the steps and agree to the things the Church requires. They won't ordain me just because I walk up to a bishop in a cathedral and ask to be ordained. A church marriage is a similar sacrament that the Church has laid out requirements for, and refusing to comply with those means you won't get married in the Church.

deleted 11y ago

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nly 11y ago

I agree, but I believe it's seen as more complicated to reclassify existing unions in law. The UK recently promoted 'civil unions' to 'marriage' status rather than downgrading traditional heterosexual marriages to unions.

drcube 11y ago

Marriage has always been a government institution. Religion co-opted it for themselves at a later time. This "leave marriage to the churches where they belong" cry is disingenuous. Marriage is about a contract between individuals. It provides government granted privileges in regards to taxes, healthcare, inheritance, court testimony and child custody. It has nothing to do with religion. If you want to have a religious ceremony to celebrate and "sanctify" your government granted marriage, so be it. But don't pretend this is a religious tradition meddled with by government. It is a government institution that has been meddled with by religion since before religion and government were separate.

edko 11y ago
There was almost no difference between government and religion when marriage originated, so it makes little sense to argue who invented it. Was Moses a political or religious leader? Were pharaohs political rulers or gods? Etc. What is very clear is that, in our society, civil and religious marriage are two different things that share a common name, and that one should have no influence over the other.
- drcube 11y ago
  It doesn't matter who invented it. It matters what it is. And marriage is fundamentally a government institution. It concerns laws and legally granted privileges. If there's a sacred component, let the churches keep that part, but that's not what the SCOTUS ruled on, and it's not what millions across the country have been demanding for decades.
  - humanrebar 11y ago
    > And marriage is fundamentally a government institution. That's nonsense. I'd stay married to my wife even if it were illegal.
    - imaginenore 11y ago
      Not legally you won't. Your "marriage" will be equivalent to "monogamous relationship", that's about it. No visitation rights. No tax breaks. No inheritance rights. No pension rights.

Spooky23 11y ago

I think that's a flawed assertion. Civil marriage has been around forever, and is nearly universal in western society. Civil Union / domestic partnership is a compromise solution that addresses the realities of modern society. You get the benefits of partnership without involving assets. Marriage has always been a more binding thing, and for good reason.

ohitsdom 11y ago

I agree, but I don't think you can be disappointed from this ruling. Getting the government out of marriage is not an option for the court to take, and it wasn't the issue before them. If we want government out of marriage, it'd have to be done through Congress and a reformed tax code.

ctdonath 11y ago
Some states have started looking at dropping the formal recognition of marriage entirely. Increasingly devoid of any meaning, and given enough harassment for limiting who it applies to (consider, say, 12 people and a goat), comes a point where the state decides there is simply no point in recognizing the institution at all.
- __z 11y ago
  WHICH states are considering dropping the formal recognition of marriage entirely? That sounds extremely implausible.
  - ctdonath 11y ago
    Louisiana for one.

ProAm 11y ago

Marriage is not about religion or personal belief in the eyes of the government. It's a business contract that has everything to do with money.

yes_or_gnome 11y ago

Unions? That sounds like some commie bullshit. /s I agree, but that's just not going to happen. Besides, it's tom-ay-to/tom-ah-to.

kisna72 11y ago

I agree with you. An example of how bad things can get, we can look at ISIS. people governing a with religious rules will never go any good, mostly because religious rules were created a very long time ago for a completely different world.

nathan_long 11y ago
That's an extremely selective example to support your view. For an example of the opposite, look at the Khmer Rouge, which governed with a specifically anti-religious stance, committed genocide and torture, and starved a large portion of their population. Or consider Stalin and Mao, who killed tens of millions each, or even the French Revolutionaries, who killed tens of thousands without trial. Religion is not the source of evil, either in individuals or in governments. Evil is in people's hearts. Sometimes it is expressed via religious action, unfortunately. But the two should not be conflated.
- Loughla 11y ago
  "I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people; you are wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides." Havelock Vetinari

mikeash 11y ago

What's the difference between a "civil union" and a secular marriage? It seems like the separation you wish for is already here, effectively. You can get a religious marriage without a government-recognized marriage, or you can get a government-marriage without a religious marriage. If you want, you can do both. Looks to me like the only difference is the name.

jasonlotito 11y ago
> Looks to me like the only difference is the name. That's literally what it is. People could get married in all 50 states before this ruling. At issue was whether it was officially recognized or not, which has been fixed.
- metasean 11y ago
  > At issue was whether it was officially recognized or not, which has been fixed. They can now be legally recognized. It is still up to churches whether to religiously recognize them.

Chinjut 11y ago

Marriage is not primarily a religious institution. Many non-religious people get married, and see no incongruity in it.

nickhalfasleep 11y ago

The Government only got into the Marriage business when they wanted to start denying it.. to interracial couples.

rodgerd 11y ago
You aren't even wrong.
- nickhalfasleep 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_Un...
  - rodgerd 11y ago
    Just as well there were no laws concerning marriage before then in the United States.

kaonashi 11y ago

What functional difference does it make?

jasonlotito 11y ago

That's what happened. Your problem is that they are using the word marriage. Prior to this, gays could marry in all 50 states. Just not all 50 states would recognize that marriage. And if the government doesn't recognize your marriage, does it really matter what religion or personal tradition you are following? Apparently, it does. There is nothing religious about this. It's merely the a similar phrase, one that happens to have religious or cultural attachment. > but because it seems our country doesn't actually want to fix problems at the root. That's because it can't be fixed at the root. The root has already happened, and the only people with a problem with the fix now are people who think this has anything to do with religion, which it does not.

ctdonath 11y ago

The state has a vested interest in procreation (i.e.: creation of new citizens & taxpayers as others die off), so takes an interest in "marriage" as a means for facilitating the most efficient & effective means of promoting procreation, doing so by giving special benefits in return for parents taking on special obligations. Expanding the beneficiaries of those benefits to those to whom there is absolutely no chance (to the point of the notion being preposterous based on just 2 literal bits of information) of procreation is giving benefits to those whom will give nothing back in return. The problem, as you sort of touch on, is that between evolution, religion & politics we've added abstractions & tangents to the issue, making most people think it's really about feelings etc instead of the base issue of procreation.

stephencanon 11y ago
My cousin and the two kids that he and his husband adopted beg to differ. As do many, many other kids who might otherwise be in the foster care system consuming the resources of the state. The state has an interest in stable household formation, full stop.
saturdaysaint 11y ago
Right, so we should add fertility tests to remove other people that have no chance of procreating from the marriage pool. We should also eliminate many of the benefits if couples don't produce children after a certain age and maybe even eliminate tax benefits after a certain number of years since a married couple's last child. Thanks for bringing this discussion back to the true soul of marriage: procreation incentives.
deleted 11y ago
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Terr_ 11y ago
So you're saying the government's "vested interest" should let it prohibit/nullify the marriages of heterosexual couples don't (or can't) pop out a child? What about couples whose prospective offspring would be... undesirable to the state? Eugenics? No, it's not about procreation, it's about social structures. Adoption is always a possibility.

lettergram 11y ago

I actually was somewhat angry that this didn't happen, the supreme court has the right to alter laws in the way mentioned. Certainly, specific aspects of the rights/laws protected under marriage would need to change. Case in point, visitation rights for children. However, that could be altered more simply by creating visitation rights "emotionally invested parties" or something (which also would have worked for the gay or straight communities). The fact is, all legalizing gay marriage does at a national level is reduce states rights. Yes, there is an emotional argument, that gay couples should be recognized, and I agree they should. However, there were many means to that end, and they chose one that appeased the masses, but perhaps was "less correct," in the sense that it is probably wrong for the government to interfere with any sort of bond between people in private.

FrankenPC 11y ago

Is it possible that LGBT marriage rights were officially recognized because it was becoming apparent that the next step was to strip religion out of the discourse? Thereby losing a valuable beachhead in society? Nah. To conspiracy theory-ish.

FrankenPC 11y ago
Due to the down votes, I feel compelled to clarify: I meant as opposed to removing marriage from contractual language and using civil union instead.

tommorris 11y ago

> People on both sides of the debate agree (if given the option) that the government probably never should have messed with marriage, at least not as the cultural/religious thing that it is. No, I think religion shouldn't have messed with a societal institution. Religion has no more right over it than the state does. The state makes the laws, not religion.

thoman23 11y ago

If the governmental/legal aspects of marriage are captured under "civil union", what exactly is "marriage" at that point? A pretty ceremony at a church? For all practical purposes, marriage IS a secular contract between two people that helps mediate the rights of two people in a wide variety of domains. To me saying gay people can't marry is akin to saying gay people can't form LLCs. Maybe the religious side should come up with a new name for their ceremonies to avoid some of the confusion? How about "religious union"? (whatever that means)

ap22213 11y ago

Alternatively, religions can just rename 'marriage' to 'holy marriage' or something.

zzleeper 11y ago

Well you have the legal/civil marriage and the religious marriage. You can call it "civil union" or whatever you want, but the important thing are the rights attached and that's what this ruling is about. Nothing to do with church, just the civil part.

hacknat 11y ago

Your sentiment, while admirable, is a libertarian pipe dream. Even the most liberal countries in the world still get involved in marriage. While I am by no means a social conservative, I do agree with conservatives that the family is the foundational institution of civil society (and a lot of anthropological research supports this argument). Governments will be more or less involved with it to some degree, both to foster it economically and encourage it socially. To see the American social contract as having been set up to never have to encounter or acknowledge any spiritual/religious institutions is bad history, we have simply always held that the government cannot be in the practice of encouraging one over the other. Taking the long view, conservatives (and others) should be rejoicing. This ruling is a broad expansion of the definition of what the government will recognize as a family, a definition that is of consequence to numerous helpful social programs, and an affirmation of what family is in civil society. The ruling will have enormous social benefits for our society.

pekk 11y ago
There is no reason why governments should be involved in it, except that people can't keep their grubby hands off of it. Doesn't make a lot of sense for us to subsidize people to do something which they are supposedly doing because they want to. The only reason there are all these fancy tax breaks is because politicians get ahead saying they are "for families". It isn't the government's job to "acknowledge" every religious custom you have at church by also writing it into law or something. The government has its own jobs.
- tommorris 11y ago
  > Doesn't make a lot of sense for us to subsidize people to do something which they are supposedly doing because they want to. Sure it does. Long-term couples tend to take care of each other's health and wellbeing. Marriage is a way of recognising that long-term care relationship. In countries with any kind of government funded or subsidised health system (or even a private health system based on insurance), those benefits of being married are costs that would otherwise be borne by the rest of society. When I'm old, having a partner to look after me means I'm less likely to need to go to hospital or need doctor's visits. I'm less likely to be unhappy, so more likely to be economically productive. If I need to take time off work, or retrain, or whatever, two partners are able to rely on each other for both financial and moral support. Social conservatives are right in the sense that marriage is for plenty of people a form of social "glue" that holds people together. The state has good reason to want people to be held together like that - because it makes citizens happier, more productive, less likely to need public handouts, more likely to be able to raise children successfully or produce taxable wealth - and so on and so on. It'd be difficult to measure the economic benefit of marriage to the state, but the actual economic benefit of being married is pretty minimal (estate/inheritance taxes seem like the biggest benefit) compared to the benefit to society and to the state. Most if not all of those things that marriage does are also applicable to same-sex couples, incidentally.

rayiner 11y ago

I find that argument ironic. Whatever religious connotations it may or may not have, marriage is a legal construct. It's an arrangement created to deal with a whole host of practical legal problems: inheritance, property rights, etc. Even before modern government, when organized religion administered marriage, it was a function of the legal side of religion.

rodgerd 11y ago

> government probably never should have messed with marriage, at least not as the cultural/religious thing that it is. Marriage is not and was never a religious "thing" in the English legal tradition.

justforthis123 11y ago

I don't know if others felt it but my main feeling was that of anger. After watching the great joy and thankfulness (why should they being thankful!) from the LGBT community the only thought I could have was - How are we letting this situation to exist where elected and non-elected groups of people can decide to restrict or 'grant' joy to such a vast set of humanity.

ebiggs 11y ago

I used to think this was a good approach to take, to just eliminate marriage, but I eventually changed my mind, and here's why: This isn't a matter of state and religion it's a matter of state and CULTURE. You need to take it into consideration with the idea of kinship bonds as a whole. Take for example the kinship role of fatherhood. This is something the state is rightly committed to taking a stance on, and there's a branch of law (family) to deal with rights, obligations, etc around this kinship bond. What is a father? Is it a biological father who has not given up his rights? Is it a biological father who has no custody rights? Is it a biological father who has terminated all rights? IS it a non-biological father who has adopted? Is it a step-father who has a different name and doesn't have custodial rights but has been called daddy as long as the child can remember? Is it the man who's name is on the birth certificate but whose dna proves it's not his? Or should we abandon the word father all together and say "civil custodial guardian." instead to try and separate culture from the state? The separation of culture from state signifies what you hear all the time on fox news: a culture war. There was a culture war around civil rights 50 years ago too, and now nobody thinks twice about it. Eventually the same will be true around gay rights. The idea that you have to step around terms like wife, husband, or marriage - because they get folks riled up would be like stepping around "father" because it might get some folks riled up - it just doesn't happen to as much right now. One could argue that marriage is an affinity kinship bond, not a descent kinship bond - and thus fundamentally different than parenthood. But that's a biological distinction - not really a civil distinction given all the tremendous amount of legal work that has gone into removing and assigning parental rights for both biological and non biological children. Marriage isn't a dirty word, it's not a religious word, it's a cultural word that describes an incredibly important affinity kinship bond. A society with plural cultures does not require that we rename everything under sterile newspeak words.

pohl 11y ago

What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form... It's not a difficult thought experiment to imagine the consequences of this: hospitals refusing to allow visitation from people who are – but they do not accept as – members of your family. Employers refusing to extend health coverage, etc. Government will have a place here so long as there is dispute over the definition of "immediate family".

mrgoldenbrown 11y ago

It sounds like you have bought into the fox news talking point that "marriage" is fundamentally a religious word and civil union is a legal thing. Merriam Webster's first definition talks about marriage as a union in law. It doesn't even mention religion at all in fact. Dictionay.com mentions both, though "legally" is mention before "religiously". The English word marriage, in the United States, can refer to either the government approved legal contract, or a religious ceremony. If we want to separate the church and state, let's invent a new word to refer to the religious aspects.

bippi 11y ago

You're talking centuries of property and estate rights laws in all states and counties. It would be a freakin' mess. But yeah, this ruling eschews poly relationships.

SwellJoe 11y ago

I agree with you on the end goal, but perfect is the enemy of the good, and I could not more strongly disagree about waiting until that perfect solution is on the table. Having every gay couple wait another couple of decades until everybody gets their head out of their ass to have basic rights like visitation of their partner in the hospital, inheritance rights, co-parental rights of children, etc. is an unacceptable moral compromise, and it is heartless to demand that millions of gay Americans make that sacrifice so that the law can look like I want it to. We still have a long way to go to recognize all of the shapes relationships take (I'm non-monogamous, for example, and don't really expect to see multi-party legal unions in my lifetime), but making one huge group of people suffer while those other things get sorted out is an ethically untenable option, for me. And, honestly, I suspect this is a step in that direction...the religious loons will continue to campaign for changes, because of this. And, we can continue to push for reform.

ElComradio 11y ago
The perfect being the enemy of the good is one thing. It's something else when the compromise actually reinforces the root problem. We now have reinforced the idea that government gets to decide who can get married. Wrong direction.
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  And, so, until we correct the misunderstanding gay people should be excluded from being able to share custody of their children, be beneficiaries of social security, medicare, insurance, retirement plans, and visitation of the partners when in the hospital, etc., all things that heterosexual married couples currently enjoy under the law? That's the wrong direction, and it is unconstitutional. The reality is that the world just got nicer for a lot of people. The theoretical "reinforced" root problem effects literally no one. Before today, that root problem existed. It still exists today. There is no scenario today for real people that is worse than yesterday. I'm not willing to throw gay couples under the bus because it doesn't suit me that the government has a role in marriage. It has had a role in marriage for longer than you or I have been on this earth. This doesn't strengthen that notion in any way. The government has been granted no new power over your relationships than it had yesterday (just because you or I don't like that it has any say in relationships is not what is up for discussion), and it is disingenuous, or at least misdirection, to suggest otherwise.

bcheung 11y ago

Equally the government should not discriminate based on whether you are married or not for tax purposes. They need to treat everyone the same in the eyes of the law.

millstone 11y ago
What would this look like? My wife has no income because she is raising our children. Should she be eligible for welfare? Do I owe gift tax if she orders a pizza from our joint checking account?
- Retra 11y ago
  Well, naturally, that only implies the welfare laws and taxes should change as well. For instance, whether you get welfare or not shouldn't simply be determined by your income, but by an actual analysis of your circumstances: it should be provided based on actual need, not numbers. The problem here is that it is a very major change, and it may cost a lot and take a long time and a lot of consideration, and that might make it politically untenable.

justonepost 11y ago

Yeah, absolutely. I think Christians should have their own concept of marriage, but it should have nothing to do with the state.

akssri 11y ago

Exactly. I think the libertarian way to go would be to limit the role of the Govt. to enable Tax breaks for spouses, and other impersonal things.

__z 11y ago
It's a practical matter. "Getting married" is very easy and requires almost no expense and only a little bit of time. You don't need to plan at all for a civil marriage, just sign some paperwork. Drafting all the documents you'll need (will, medical directive, etc.) without a marriage takes lots of time and money (lawyer fees). Writing marriage into laws is a way to save families time and money and make everything simple for them.

hawleyal 11y ago

Trouble is, state governments have been messing with it. This is an attempt to stop it.

deleted 11y ago

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threatofrain 11y ago

Why should the government stop addressing marriage, which is a cross-cultural structure involving people officially declaring their relationship to a community, sometimes via a legal vehicle? Marriage has been independently constructed by many peoples with many variations. Often times we talk about Christian marriage but not Chinese or Greek marriage. Why do you frame marriage as principally religious, and something the government should keep out of? There's one way in which governments have screwed up, including state governments, and that's allowing priests to have legal authority. The wedding industry is a revenue stream. In what other way does religion have relation to marriage? Through the laws of Moses, transferred from God? The government shouldn't be afraid of words. The government should feel free to not trespass upon religion by creating as many alternative marriages as it wants. The government can create a "high-fecundity during wartime" category of marriage if it wants, and grant extra tax benefits. That's a matter of secular policy. "I really suggest the A41 form for marriage for your case in particular. My cousin and his girlfriend got married under A41 and they've structured their finances like so and so."

ajays 11y ago

> What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage ... Sure. But gay marriage and getting government out of marriage altogether are not mutually exclusive. Government can still get out of the business of marriage (and divorce). Please feel free to petition your legislators to pursue that approach. In the meantime, it is only fair that the gays enjoy the same rights that the rest of us do.

cmurf 11y ago

There's no possible way this can happen. There's zero political will by two branches of government at the federal level, times 50 at the state level. And the Supreme Court can't do it on its own, because it would have to reverse itself on over a dozen cases in 100+ years specifically stating marriage is a right. And the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights considers marriage a right, Article 16.

ryanSrich 11y ago

It has far less todo with what people want than it does with just taking what you can get. If gay couples had to wait around for the government to change the way it handles marriage they might as well just count on never having the option to join each other in a civil union. Your ideas are great in theory but they don't really fit into the corrupt framework of modern day politics (or even throughout written history).

sbassi 11y ago

Why should the government stop defining marriage? what is wrong with this?

ggchappell 11y ago

Correct me if I'm misunderstanding things, but your comment suggests that you think marriage started as a religious thing and then later became a legal matter. This is not the case, at least in western/european culture. In fact, the reverse is true. Marriage was not thought of as a religious institution until pretty late in the game -- certainly not until after 1000. (For example, marriage was not declared a sacrament until the Council of Trent in the 1500s.)

crystaln 11y ago

"the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union" I don't see this as anything other than arguing a trivial semantic distinction - that we should use the word "union" for government rights granted to couples instead of "marriage"? Even if you are right about a slightly better word, who cares? What is the effective difference? Religious and government marriages are different. A "marriage" license issued by a government is indistinguishable from a civil union license. Why grant religions a monopoly on the use of the word. In all honesty, this is a non-sensical frankenstein remnant of the separate but equal argument for marriage and civil union. It really has no value.

snambi 11y ago

Its a just marriage. But the noise created by politicians and media is out of proportion. Now that we have a verdict, hope all the noise goes away.

skywhopper 11y ago

"Marriage" is the term under which those rights are defined. Marriage is not a religious construct. Rather, religion and culture are deeply intertwined, but you seem to be accepting the Christian Right's assertion that it alone can define marriage. But I reject that claim. They are free to place their own restrictions on marriages their churches will endorse, but they are not free to define my marriage. Turning the word "marriage" over to "religion" (and ignoring the millions of religious people who fully support same-sex marriage) does more harm than good to reaching our goal of equality.

XorNot 11y ago
Religions don't have a monopoly on words. The government, and the people, have a right to name things whatever they want. If the only thing holding your institution up was it's name, then you had other problems to start with.

intopieces 11y ago

>People on both sides of the debate agree (if given the option) that the government probably never should have messed with marriage, at least not as the cultural/religious thing that it is. They don't actually believe this, they only say they do. Take any person who says "Get the government out of marriage!" and ask them if they'd like to pay higher taxes and give up the rights that come with marriage. They'll say, "Well, no..." Simply put, the libertarian cry you suggest is red herring. It's a way to disguise a disgust for gay marriage by making it sounds like you're for "smaller government." If they really believed what they said, they'd have gotten married in a church and then just never filed the documents with the state. Remember, you can get married in a church and not have it recognized by state. Gays were doing it for years.

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

Not until the meaning of marriage changes in people's heads too. For some years my gay friends were "civil unionised" and I always had to do this two step in my head from the words to the meaning I had for life long loving partnership that still has blazing rows and .... You know - Marriage. So, this is not about religion (really this is from a country where most people under 60 attending church are doing so they can get their kids into the associated school) - it's not about the tax laws, it's about what society sees, expects and hands out to a married couple. It makes a difference - there is a difference between a couple who are "to all intents and purposes" married and a couple who are married. Because for the 95% straight relationships out there we read something into why that couple has not gotten married. And we are then forced to read the same into a gay couple. That's why marriage matters. Living together is not quite the same. And we know it.

bsder 11y ago

> What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union (or a similar phrase with no significant religious/cultural attachment). Hopefully this ruling will cause exactly that. If the churches don't want same-sex "marriage", they now MUST lobby their legislatures to separate marriage from the civil contracts that it is conflated with. Until this ruling, nobody was going to take up the task. States that might have done this were already legalizing it anyway. States that would be opposed weren't going to spend the time and energy to fight their own constituents. Now, there will be motivation in the most conservative states to actually get that done.

analog31 11y ago

What should happen is the government should stop defining marriage of any form (leave that to religion or personal tradition), and simply define all these rights under civil union (or a similar phrase with no significant religious/cultural attachment). The state that I live in passed a constitutional amendment specifically prohibiting civil unions. The only remaining recourse was the supreme court.

mirimir 11y ago

Yes, we want separation of church and state. But this decision says nothing about church. It affects only the state's role in marriage. Here's a concrete example. Two people of the same sex want to marry. They get a marriage license. They find someone who's qualified and willing to marry them. They submit paperwork to the state, proving that they're married, and they become legally married. The Supreme Court ruling doesn't require someone who's qualified to marry them, unless that qualified person is a state official. It doesn't, for example, require a Catholic priest to marry them. The Catholic church can still prohibit marriages between people of the same sex. However, for purposes of employment, or involving government contracts, the Catholic church must recognize all legal marriages, including those between people of the same sex. But how much of a change does that actually represent? Before this decision, the Catholic church had to recognize legal non-Catholic marriages of all sorts for those purposes.

chx 11y ago

Marriage as an institution dates from the Neolithic. Nothing to do with religion. Source: http://www.econ.ku.dk/okojwe/filer/MEHR/adshade_kaiser_10_08.pdf http://www.econ.ku.dk/okojwe/filer/MEHR/adshade_kaiser_10_08...