Post #373,021
3/27/13 5:31:39 PM
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Uhh ... no
If marriage laws are in any way about regulating procreation, then those same interests apply to unmarried procreation. If you aren't going to regulate that, then you can't use procreation as a driving factor in marriage laws.
If you take out procreation, and aren't left with any reasonable state interest in marriage, and therefore conclude that the state shouldn't regulate marriage at all, then you'd be agreeing with me.
Well, with one of my alternatives. If the state has any interest in marriage, then the thing that the state calls "marriage" can't have anything to do with what various churches call "marriage". Can't have both.
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Drew
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Post #373,042
3/28/13 8:59:57 AM
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Actually, I do agree with your second sentence.
If marriage is determined to no longer have any relation to procreation, then there is no basis for the requirement of a state license, because there is no tenable state interest at hand. But we aren't quiet there yet, I don't think, because at least some states still require blood tests and all states require marriage licenses. (Aside: I looked and neither the Rubella nor Rh factor blood tests that my wife had to have in the state in which we were married are required anymore. So it may well be that the state interest in the regulation of procreation has already abandoned in that state wrt marriage).
In any case, if there are no procreative interests being expressed by any state anymore (or if indeed, the USSC rules such interests to be, de facto, unConstitutional) then I agree with you that there is no sane basis for the requirement of a marriage license nor any state *or federal* interest in a citizen's arrangements wrt cohabitation. In such case, no benefit and no penalty should accrue from one's marital status and whatever "marriage" means should be of no concern to government.
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Post #373,049
3/28/13 9:53:49 AM
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Yes, but ...
There's all that inheritance and community property and automatic power of attorney stuff to deal with.
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Drew
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Post #373,053
3/28/13 10:19:02 AM
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It's really not that difficult.
And the law is not as clear-cut on those issues as you might think. For example, I am the sole surviving member of my mother's immediate family, but I still had to fill out boilerplate for power of attorney. And, because she didn't check the "Medical POA" box, I still cannot make medical decisions for her. Many people die without wills and its up to the state court to decide if any surviving relatives get anything. The concept of "community property" owing to wedlock varies widely by state. But, my company has a boilerplate for all that stuff (POA, will, living will, etc.) that takes about 10 minutes to fill out. Plus, the document's a heck of a lot easier to change than one's marital status.
All in all, I think probably the best solution is to just abandon any state interest in marriage and leave it to rabbis, priests, reverends, preachers, the FSM, etc.
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Post #373,055
3/28/13 10:25:15 AM
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Theory vs. practice
If I were in an accident and placed on life support, my wife is the first person they'd go to for questions ... or to pay the bills. That's true in every state. If we weren't married but had lived together for the same 15 years, that would still be assumed but it might take a lawyer to make certain things stick.
If everything were the same except that she were a "he", it would take a lawyer to even establish standing.
Are you suggesting that we don't want a simple assumption of responsibility to be possible ever? Lawyers might like that, nobody else.
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Drew
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Post #373,056
3/28/13 10:36:15 AM
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Lawyers - and I - would like that.
Crazy's right in one regard about me. I do not like ambiguity. Take your example, suppose I am in an accident and I *do not* want my wife to have any say in my medical treatment. Nor to be held to account for any bills I incur for any treatment. Your remedy (the existing paradigm) implicitly grants power and responsibility to my spouse over and for me that I did not explicitly grant. (Yes, you can argue that I did explicitly grant those powers when I married her - but, come on, who really thought that through at the tender age at which they uttered, "I do."). My proposed solution requires me to explicitly grant her in an unambiguous manner such power.
It makes the tax laws simpler and more fair, it makes the distribution of a person's estate more clear by forcing a person to create a will, it makes unambiguous medical decisions for an incapacitated person (and let me tell you, having spent a good portion of my younger years working in a hospital, it can get awfully messy when a spouse disagrees with her children about the care of old dad). In short, things get much better defined - and more even handed as a bonus - if the law simply ignores marriage in its entirety.
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Post #373,050
3/28/13 9:55:04 AM
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Cool, I agree with you
And when you die I'll have a few people to come over and pick through your stuff to see what I want to take. And before then, I'll pop by the hospital and tell the doctors to pull your plug if I think it's taking a bit too long.
Just a couple of many, Greg did a good start of the many issues. Since the ONLY thing you care about is an historical "procreation" one, which you ABANDONED in the above post, then YOU don't have any interest in the issue except simply removing the word "marriage" from everybody. It's not your ball, you don't get to take it home.
Your primary issue was built on a foundation of sand, and you just washed it away. Got any other issues or will you simply post the same thing again and again as if the above post wasn't written? Or will you grasp for the next one since believers such as yourself cannot learn new things, because it contradicts with your belief.
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