What a simplistic, reductio ad absurdum rebuttal. Is the institution of marriage nothing more than an attempt to elevate or increase the status and human dignity of heterosexuals? Or is it much, much more -- namely a cornerstone of our civilization that has been extant in some form for all of recorded history?
Much more rests on the institution of marriage than mere social status or some vague sense of "dignity." If this is the level of logic this court develops in its opinions, it is less a court than a court jester.
What a simplistic, reductio ad absurdum rebuttal. Is the institution of marriage nothing more than an attempt to elevate or increase the status and human dignity of heterosexuals? Or is it much, much more — namely a cornerstone of our civilization that has been extant in some form for all of recorded history?
Well, never before have treated marriage like something that everyone has to accept as true, or in a do-or-die fashion. Marriage also wasn’t always about a license either. Some people may think my marriage vows weren’t made with authority from God (atheist) or that my marriage isn’t legit (person believing in the sanctity of the state).
Either way, I decided to bypass getting a marriage license, which I have found, amounts to close to nothing legally. Everything else, such as healthcare directives, will & testament, and registered insurance policy, actually does. Interesting enough, the fact that people make a deal about the marriage license shows people adopting a worshipful attitude toward the state instead of God. Interestingly enough, the Bible has quite a number of harsh words regarding people feeling worshipful, or encouraging worship in the wrong way towards government officials. God was angry that King Saul decided to offer the sacrifice instead of allowing Samuel, through his office of a Levite, to do it. God was enraged at the bondage of Israel under the Egyptian monarchy, which was regarded as dieties on Earth, and Samuel was angry at the fact that the people in Israel actually wanted a monarchy, which he warned would produce all sorts of ills. No thousands of years later, the same inclination still exists, plenty of people who seem to not wish to worship God, seem to exert an equivalent of religious faith in the morality of the state government, such an attitude of government worship is a driving force behind communism, or even simply government corruption. It sometimes appears a secular substitute for religion itself.
Not just our civilization, but every great civilization every recorded anywhere on earth.