[Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS]

For the sexual libertines/anarchists who still haven't a clue…Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To ...

[Post Toasties]

IMO, marriage is to benefit future generations (the children), not to provide some goodie grab bag for the married partners. This should be kept in mind when deciding what tax and other benefits accrue to families.

[randog]

bump for later read.

[BiffWondercat]

Very shortly, my "Love Ewe" and I will no longer have to live in shame!

[independentmind]

To her frustration, she could not convince even the most progressive members of Madison's Equal Opportunities Commission to recognize "plural sexual groupings" as marriages. That failure helped energize Fineman's lifelong drive to abolish marriage.

Thanks for posting this article. I just have one question. Where do all these people come from and why don't I know any of them? How did they all end up in academia? (Two questions actually.)

[EdReform]

BTTT for later...

[Yosemitest]

Leviticus 20:13
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.

[ellery]

The state will never be able to abolish marriage. Marriage existed long before the state decided to get involved and "license" it, and will continue to thrive regardless of what the government does. It should be a private, religious institution.

[livius]

Interesting and well-researched article.

One important point, often ignored, is that in polygamous societies, women are always worth a little less than dirt.

Another important point is that polygamous societies tend to be sloppy and unproductive. Most of the work is done by women, while the male herds them and impregnates them. I once read somewhere that one of the great gifts of Judeo-Christian culture to the world was the codification of monogamous marriage.

Men, for one reason or another, are much more productive when they have one wife. We won't speculate on why that is, but it does seem to be true, if you look at polygamous cultures (starting with Islamic countries).

[Greybird]

[...] Sooner or later, friends like this are going to start contracting same-sex marriages of convenience. The single mom will get medical and governmental benefits, will share her friend's paycheck, and will gain an additional caretaker for the kids besides. [...] In Hawkins's words, the proliferation of such arrangements "would turn marriage into the moral equivalent of a Social Security benefit."

And there's the crux of the REAL problem: the use of state-sanctioned marriage to carry a politicized load of obligations and "benefits" under force of law.

Current tax and employee-benefit laws push, first, the provision of insurance and other benefits through employers; and second, the "convenience" -- even with duplication among two working adults -- of having these linked to spouses. The "marriage penalty" in the income tax for two working spouses is only a feeble counter-cost to the much broader benefit of employer-provided health insurance.

The linkage of marriage to governmental benefits and favors in the welfare state has the same dynamic. Smaller single-parent counter-costs (AFDC, WIC) are dwarfed in economic impact by marital benefits (Social Security, most of all).

It's the removal of such required linkages, between marriage and private-but-nearly-forced or governmental benefits, that would remove the real problem. Along with state sanction or invasive force to support other marital "benefits," such as the enforced and sole right to hospital visitation. (One such linkage is, fortunately, being largely removed with the abolition of the inheritance tax.)

When marriage -- obligations and benefits -- is removed from the purview of the State, the usual dynamic of a free society will re-emerge: Those valuing a marital commitment will carry it out, and find religious and other supporters to carry it out, on their own voluntary terms. Not with ulterior motives of gaining government-mandated bennies.

Government is a lousy moral teacher, but that's the role this neocon writer is demanding. If a "Marriage Amendment" were passed, it would be as successful at stopping the seeking of marital alternatives as the Prohibition Amendment was at stopping the market for alcohol. Namely, not at all, except in adding costs -- such as hiding one's activities from the police, making alternative institutions outside the State's purview, and weakening support for the rule of law.

[Snuffington]

Stanley Kurtz has been one of the only conservative writers to devote much energy to the defense of marriage. He has unfailingly defended traditional marriage in a positive, intellectual, and unapologetic way. Why more conservatives aren't rallying to this cause worries me greatly, but thank God for Stanley Kurtz.

[scripter]

Index ping.