Joel Finlinson wrote: > I agree with Sasha on this one. > > In an ideal world, we would want the State to have as small a part > of our lives as possible, but since the bill almost always falls to > the States to clean up the messes of mostly irresponsibile individuals > who don't take care of their own 'accidental' children in the form of > millions of dollars spent on welfare, child protective services, > foster parents, law enforcement, drug treatment facilities, prisons, > etc, they do have a very strong vested interest in trying to make sure > that families stay together and the composition and definition of > marriage. > > JOEL
I don't understand what the state being involved in the marriage business has to do with irresponsible individuals raising delinquent children. Unless there is some kind of "responsibility test" you have to pass to get a marriage license that I'm not aware of, that argument makes absolutely no sense. As far as I know, kids raised by gay people are no more likely to end up in prison or on welfare than kids raised by straight people. So why exactly should the government have the power to decide which adults can marry eachother and which ones can't? If the government simply recognized "civil unions", which would include marriages performed by a church, or people getting married at the courthouse, regardless of whether it was a man and a woman or not, and adjusted taxes and so forth accordingly, how would that be a problem? -- Josh H. .===================================. | This has been a P.L.U.G. mailing. | | Don't Fear the Penguin. | | IRC: #utah at irc.freenode.net | `==================================='
