The State Shouldn’t Be in the Marriage Biz part 2
I wrote the following 2 1/2 years ago:
The State has been involved in marriage longer than the concept of “separation between church and state” has been in existence. In this case tradition does not make it right, and marriage needs to be recognized as a religious event – not a civil one. In its place should be an agreement based on corporate law – a legal partnership that determines asset ownership, division and responsibility. These legal entities already exist for businesses, so why not apply them to personal relationships?
Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey writes this week:
Let’s first dispense with the idea that the government protects the sanctity of marriage. It doesn’t; if government ever did that, that ended with no-fault divorce. Marriage, as run by the government, is the only contract in this country that can be broken by one party alone with no adverse consequences. (Well, that and professional sports contracts, I guess.) Partnership agreements in the business context would disintegrate without at least the threat of government enforcement of its provisions. Marriage as run by government has been disintegrating for decades, as the divorce rate shows, and that has nothing to do with gay relationships.We would do much better to require people to create partnership contracts in the civil context than get marriage licenses for issues like property sharing, access to family, and so on.
Absolutely.
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