Does A government have any authority to refuse such a license to a couple who is perfectly capable of being married?
Good question. I guess I need to read more Mary Ann Glendon before I can answer it adequately. Let me just say that married people are truly married even without the state's recognition or authorization, and unmarriage-able people cannot be married even with it.
The role of the state, when it exists at all, is to acknowledge, not to create or authorize, a marriage. With the acknowledgement may come some guarantee of the rights of both parties, and of the children produced or adopted into the family predicated by this marriage. The state's role is basically to vindicate justice to the weaker parties.
"Does A government have any authority to refuse such a license to a couple who is perfectly capable of being married?"
I don't think so. Any government has to operate on the principle of "equal justice under law" --- or so it seems to me.
I'm assume when you say "perfectly capable of being married," you mean perfectly capable of the Marriage Act (intercourse in the procreative form), capable of true mature consent (not underage, drunk, crazy, mentally incapacitated, acting under coercion/duress, threat or fraud) and not already married to somebody else, and not related within prohibited degrees of consanguinity.
In other words, they must be at once capable, willing and eligible.
What do you think?
Free Republic will continue the fight for Liberty and against godless socialism and fascist judges!
September 3, 2015 | Jim Robinson
Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2015 5:39:43 PM by Jim Robinson
I stand with Kim Davis! I will not comply!
more...