And what do you think will be the outcome in that "Brave New World"?
Probably like it is in the countries that don’t have such intrusive government—it works well.
The churches made a pact with the devil in opening the door for government to control sacraments.
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.
Here’s a concept... let’s get the government out of the marriage business altogether!
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A n00b on another thread is advocating the exact same thing. What is it with these people? How do they think this would do anything but cause more trouble.
FWIW, I have said for years that gay marriage is the first step to legalized polygamy. In graduate school, one of my professors was a ‘gay polygamist’ and he admitted it almost 10 years ago that after gay marriage was legalized they would fight for polygamy.