Are you still on about this?
You’d rather folks shack up than get married? I hope you are well aware about the consequences.
If they believe in marriage for religious and/or cultural reasons, then they should most certainly get married. But that shouldn’t have anything whatsoever to do with the government. What’s really appalling is that nearly all churches and other religious groups for which marriage is a religious matter, submit to government’s mandate to require a government license before performing a religious marriage. As one evangelical Christian FReeper insightfully put it, it sends chills up his spine to hear a pastor officiating at a church marriage ceremony saying “By the power vested in me by the State of ________, I hereby pronounce you man and wife.” No religious organization should need a license from the government to perform its religious duties.