And of course you get it that you want a gigantic govt with fingers in everything just like liberals do, you just disagree with them as to the type of gigantic opressive govt?
My point is that all of these laws and regs do now exist, and Beck would apparently favor extending all its trappings to all comers, regardless of a total lack of public purpose.
Recognition of the conjugal, procreative family has public purpose because it safeguards (however imperfectly) the children who result from its defining sexual alliance. But one doesn't need a gigantic oppressive matrimonial Rube Goldberg machine to recognize marriage. State governments , and before that, colonial governments on this continent recognized marriage 200-300 years ago when taxes were tiny, programs were few, "entitlements" were nonexistent, and goverments controlled almost nothing of citizens' private lives.
Children need marriage because marriage is the only institution which unites children to their natural parents. From this the child derives his identity, his kinship system, and his claim on support and nurture. Lose this, and every child becomes, in effect, a ward of the State: a catastrophic INCREASE in state intrusion.
If Beck would advocate for the elimination of all these 10,000 laws and regs for all, he might have a point.
But --- after we'd gotten back to zero --- at some point down the line, we'd have to reinvent some sort of practical way to reassert the natural parents' obligations toward the offspring they have brought into existence. But that's not what Glenn Beck is asking for. As I understand it.
If, starkly, the choice were to retain civil marriage and abolish religious marriage, or retain religious marriage and abolish civil mariage, I would without hesitation favor the latter.
Truly it is you that don't get it. Libertarians don;t get it. Anarchy is just as bad as tyranny. The Articles of Confederation should be the ideologically Utopian Libertarians' wake up call; much like the fall of Communism should be the wake up call for leftists.
Moral order is oppressive? LOL!!!! Things not reserved to the federal or the state are NOT reserved to the people? There was no law before government? ROTFLMAO!!! YOU want imposed anarchy!
Upholding and enforcing the law of the land in place BEFORE government -common law and recognized institution -maintaining moral order is one role of government as envisioned by the founders. Defining marriage is NOT the role of government. NOR is abandoning marriage the role of government.
Libertarians hold dear quite a few flawed Utopian ideas and laws regarding marriage are one of them --which is why Libertarians are politically irrelevant.