My particular take on state involvement in marriage is that it really doesn’t belong there. This is religion’s purview, and as such, not the state’s. The main legal purposes of it, as I understand it, are some power of attorney foo, mandatory support for the spouse, inheritance, custody, and taxes. Secondarily there are health care benefits, but those are breaking into the field of domestic partner benefits.
If all of these (except the taxes) can be accomplished through other avenues, why do we civil marriage?
The mandatory support for the spouse (see alimony payments) ought to be covered under a basic safety net for all citizens (also, we ought to pay house spouses for their labor, rearing the next generation, contingent upon their proper execution of their duties, blah, blah, blah).
I’ve never really understood the motivation for the tax angle.
Power of attorney and inheritance issues can be handled separately (though wills have been overruled by courts before, though I’ve never really understood why)
That leaves custody. And I cannot think of a compelling reason that co-parents must be unrelated individuals of opposite sexes engaged in some romantic relationship, and furthermore, that they must be limited in number to two. Especially given the number of children with only 1 or no parents.
In short, the government should leave marriage to the churches, imho.
marriage
I would take you one further and say that religion has nothing to do with it either, but that’s probably because I’m an atheist.
Sometimes it is strange to watch Queers asking for the right to marry, when I’m polyamorous, or to watch Queers asking for the right to join the military, when I’m a pacifist Buddhist …
I think that personal relationships should be entirely private and free of government intervention or sanction. If people desire to add contractual arrangements to their relationships that would be fine with me. As for custody battles, divorce court, etc. … I can’t imagine becoming a family law attorney and dealing with that special kind of hell.
When I broke up with my Queer long-time companion (after 7+ years together) we worked everything out between ourselves amicably — no fights over who got the Annie Lennox CDs, for example. Probably because neither of us was all that caught up in the great American pastime of possessing lots of stuff. One thing I learned while working for Legal Aid is that property settlements are very easy for low-income folks. It is the people who think they own lots of property that fight so nastily to hold on to it.