Belkira the Tulip wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Really? The state says "In order to be married, you have to do X, Y, and Z, and comply with these set of contractual agreements, and jump through these hoops", and you don't see that as the state telling people how to live their lives? You honestly don't realize that for thousands of years people got married without any state involvement at all? It's only been in the past century or so that anyone but the wealthy/nobility ever involved government in their marriages.
I see that people said, "Hey, we want this stuff for being married, it's only fair!" So the state responded with, "Ok, we can offer you this stuff and these protections, but you should let us know who you're marrying. Here's the best way to do that."
You should really study the history of marriage laws in the US. That's not how it happened at all. What happened is that most people just married in a church and were done with it. Or, they just started living together and called themselves married and were done with it. It was purely social. The community you live in knew who was who and that was all that was needed.
The government came along and said: "Hey! We need to keep track of who's married to whom, and who's responsible for who's kids. So we want everyone who's married to file a piece of paper so we can track you people".
And some people complied. But many didn't because it was a hassle.
So then the government said: "Ok. We'll give you guys some goodies if you'd pretty please make sure to file some kind of paper with us so we know who's married to whom? Here's some tax breaks. And we'll make it easier to buy property. And we'll toss in a toaster!" (this is what you were talking about, right?).
And some more people complied. But some still didn't.
So the government, cause it doesn't like people not doing what it wants, started passing common law marriages. So now, even if you never filed a piece of paper with the government, but you were living with someone of the opposite sex "as husband and wife" for X number of years, the government would just legally assume you were married! Cause we want to make sure everyone's accounted for, right?
Those last two didn't necessarily occur in that same order in every state btw, but that's basically what happened. It's abundantly apparent (obvious even) that the motivation of the government in this is to track people who are in marriage relationships, most specifically with the intent of ensuring that children are account for. Absent this, a man could father children in one state and move to another and no one could do anything about it. Heck. He could be "married" in multiple states to multiple wives.
That's how we got to where we are now.
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Then other tax paying American citizens said, "Oh, wait, that's not fair. I should be able to marry this consenting adult who is [insert illegal marriage issue here]. Make it so!!"
They were already marrying. The "problem" was that they weren't filing pieces of paper telling the government who they were marrying, so the government couldn't hold them responsible for children, property in common, etc. It was all about making the government (and the courts) jobs easier. You are naive if you think that this was done because people getting married felt that if they weren't able to file a piece of paper in a court house somehow that their marriage wasn't really a marriage.
That's what people today think after a century or so of being taught that. Gee. I wonder what vested interest there would be in teaching people this? Not the individuals.
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Blame that on the SCOTUS, who said it's a right when people wanted to discriminate against interracial couples.
But not interracial couples of the same sex. Surely you can see that there's a difference between the sexual makeup of a couple and the racial makeup of a couple? Please tell me you can see this!
If you still doubt is has to do with children, just look at the frequency with which the question of children of mixed-race couples came up during the interracial marriage debate (on both sides). The states issue with regard to marriage has always been about children produced by the couple. Everything else is stuff tossed in on top in order to obtain that. I just don't know how many times I have to repeat this before it sinks in.
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No, same-sex marriage hasn't been legal because it's considered immoral and against the Christian right. Nice try, though.
Same sex marriage isn't "illegal" now. Nice try with the whole "I don't know the difference between something being illegal and something not being rewarded".