Is this a good reason to be against legal same-sex marriage?
I am against homosexual marriage, but I am also against heterosexual marriage. I am against the idea of the government recognizing any marriage. To me, marriage is private and a religious rite that should not be recognized by the government at all. How can something be considered a civil ceremony when priests, rabbis, and pastors have the right to administer it? So when someone asks me if I'm for same-sex marriage, I have to say no, then try to explain, that for me, its not an equal rights issue at all.
Anonymous2008-12-23T14:43:52Z
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they have a right to administer it, but dont have to. ti's up to those getting married, and is in no way a religious ceremony unless u want it to be, which some don't. i'm atheist, as is my gf, and we both want a nice wedding. in short, no, it's not a good thing to be against same sex marriage, and if u don't support straight marriage, then allow us to have ti as well, so u'll hate us equally. ^_^
Government recognizes marriage because included in the marriage is an agreement or contract between two people. The civil justice system (a branch of Government) is required to settle and enforce disputes, validate responsibilities and ownership rights, recognize power of attorney, etc, that are included in all contracts. So this is the reason why Government must recognize marriage.
However, you bring up a very interesting and valid point. Why should government recognize anything about marriage other than the financial and legal aspects? Recognizing anything beyond that would be favoring certain ideologies or religious beliefs. Government is not supposed to do that. If one religion believes in opposite sex marriage, why should the Government favor that religion by recognizing this rule with in their marriage legislation? What does that have to do with the financial and legal aspects of the marriage? As long the marriage ideology is not harmful to anyone (such as genetic harm from incestuous marriage) and the parties involved can legally consent (this rules out minors and animals) the government should stay out of recognizing anything about a marriage other than the financial and legal aspects of it.
Yes, fair enough, but I presume you're in favour of SOMETHING: for very good practical reasons (which I will go into at length, if you like), the government does have to recognise certain relationships as having a particular legal and civil status. You may not want to call this legal contract "marriage" (you can call it a 'civil union' or a 'civil partnership', or whatever), but there is undoubtedly a need for some kind of legally recognised contract between two people which is in the nature of marriage and which is administered by the state and recognised by the courts. This is a public rather than a private rite, and it need not necessarily be religious - in fact, I would suggest separating it from the religious aspects fo "marriage" altogether.
The government recognizes marriage as a financial convenient between two people. This convenient comes with, among other things, several tax advantages.
Personally, as a single person I'm not to happy about the tax aspect but I understand the need for simplified property transfer within familial units.
Anyway, yes it's perfectly alright to be against legal marriage in general.
Yeah I see where you're coming from. I'm FOR gay marriage, but overall I think the best thing we could do as a society is compromise and take marriage out of the government completely. We should just give every couple a Civil Union, and if they want to call that marriage on their own terms, they can.