Historically, if you go back....there’s two angles on how we got drawn into government entanglement on this issue.
In the late 1700s...the issue of joint property came up....especially when guys would pass away, and their family (not the wife and their kids, but the brothers or parents of the guy)...would get into property disputes by saying that the wife had no connection to the property. So the idea of registering the marriage at a county office grew out of that dispute.
In the early 1800s....came the issue of guys marrying a woman and then running off....to be found months later married to another woman in the next county. So marriage license discussions came up. The threat of state law would come down on a guy who did this type of immoral activity.
To me, it’d be a lot easier to just shake the federal and state government out of this business of marriage...leaving it to the church. Then just have civil union paperwork down at the county office to conform to joint property issues.
I've been arguing for this for many years. The inevitable result of the SC rulings is that, through the 14th Amendment, every state will have to recognize gay marriages. Otherwise, there would be ongoing conflict between federal and state laws and you and I know which level of government will win that battle.
If it were about property rights, your solution (which I agree with, BTW) would be perfect. Problem is that it is not about property. It is about attacking the moral foundations of this country. Destroying the family, and making the state the arbitrator of what constitutes a family, not the church or the individuals, is the goal.
That's exactly right. One big reason why the word "marriage" is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution is that the God-given rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights apply to individuals, not groups (or even couples). The right to keep and bear arms, for example, doesn't apply differently to two people living 100 miles apart than it applies to the same two people after they get married.
Government or a controlling legal authority has always been involved in marriage, from Greece to Rome, to England, and early America, even primitive people’s have marriage laws.
Thomas Jefferson purchased his marriage license in 1771,