dfwgator: And what do you think will be the outcome in that “Brave New World”?
I've written the same thing as Gondring, so I'll answer, but briefly.
If the government gets out of the marriage business, a lot of laws that apply to people who are married will have to be eliminated or revised. Marriage will become a private matter in that if anyone wants to get “married” they can do so according to whatever custom/tradition/condition they choose, and no one else has to recognize said marriage if they choose not to. There will be no government sanction to the marriage itself.
That may be more effort than people want to go to.
Contrariwise, an effort to get the government out of the marriage business would drive discussion/evaluation to justify why the government should be in the marriage business to start with. I expect such justification would not make happy those who want something other than one male/one female marriage, at least if done honestly. And doing it honestly is the rub.
It would be a somewhat dangerous path to take, but less so than the one we are on now.
Nuclear families are a necessity for economic stability, if we denormalize families, that will only lead to a further expansion of the welfare state.
It is precisely this sort of breezy, relativist idealism that has allowed the redefinition of the word "marriage" to even be considered in the first place.
Do you not see that?
Which is a major objective of the homosexual movement's attack on marriage.
What they hate is the heteronormative nature of marriage, and government's recognition of same.
They want the churches to "take it all back" and government to "take it all back". How dare anyone say the truth, that homosexuality is a paraphilia, and inherently deviate?
They want so-called "hate-crime" (thought-crime) legislation on the books so that their lawywers like Evan Wolfson and that queer crowd at ACLU and Lambda Legal can march into court to make individual Christians and Jews, and indeed entire congregations, "take it all back" or give up their jobs, houses, savings, and property in retaliation -- exactly, by the way, what the Southern Poverty Law Center did to a rancher who tried to defend his property against Mexican illegal trespassers by calling in, as a last, desperate resort, a private ranch-rescue operation.
Eventually, of course, the official policy must become one of persecution, and of requiring little gestures of ..... good faith ..... along life's road, for everyone in society.
the absurd volunteer system of the past is what created the mess.
remember marriage is also about PRIVATE property rights, inheritance, paternity and a host of other institutional issues.
The left wants no property rights and children as property of the state with zero parental rights. (just go to an ABA convention)