Um, and when we enter into a contract and I take your money without fulfilling the my side of the contract becuase our guns are bigger than yours, then what?
I have been arguing that it shouldn't be a matter of civil law at all. A better word than *religious* would be that marriage (or unions, whatever you want to call them) are personal rites. It should be completely between the people entering into it.
Yeah, I know how the ideal libertarian world would like to work. Unfortunately, contracts in a libertarian world absent civil law are unenforceable except to the extent that my armory is bigger than yours.
If they wish to get sanction from a particular religion for their union, that is their choice. If they don't desire any sanction from any religious group, that is also their choice.
That is already the case.
The government should not be involved in any way; that includes in granting them special privileges because they get married, like tax exemptions.
Actually I would concur with that, nor should there be a marriage penalty. But the vast preponderance of Americans are not gonna give up their deductions for dependents. So it goes.
That way, if two gay men get married with the blessing of a religious group, or if they choose to just say vows to themselves with some friends over to witness, that would be their choice.
Could we can the newspeak and speak English? Marriage is and always has been in the USA the union of one man and one woman. And in point of fact, any American fulfilling that, the age requirments and the blood relative requirement can marry. If the government abridged the right of lesbians and gays to get married when they fulfilled those requirements that would violate civil rights laws and the constitutions guarantee of equal treatment. As it is, it does not.
Nobody else would be forced to acknowledge their union as valid if they didn't want to. There would be no civil benefits to getting married, for heterosexual or homosexual marriage (monogamous or polygamous). No tax breaks; nothing.
Fine by me as long as you understand that marriage is a word with meaning. Doing an Orwell on it is no better than redefining is. Nothing prevents any citizen from entering into contracts right now. Nothing.