RE: Same sex marriage
May 14, 2012 at 12:13 pm
(This post was last modified: May 14, 2012 at 12:15 pm by Ben Davis.)
(May 14, 2012 at 11:10 am)NoMoreFaith Wrote: SummerQueen also had the superb idea of removing the legal status of Marriage, and making all unions civil unions.
You can get married in a church if you like, but it conveys no legal rights unless a separate secular process is followed to create a contract between parties granting rights.
I've been banging on about this point for a long time, too. There's a growing sentiment in the UK that 'marriage' is nothing more than the legal ratification of 'commitment'. The implication being that your commitment to a partner is not good enough until ratified by a state or religious entity.
I would remove all legal rights, all legal definitions of marriage so that there's no difference in legal status between single people or those in committed partnerships. Let's face facts; the only reason marriage laws were created in the first place was to setlle disputes over ownership of women & dowries; fortunately such feudal & misogynistic thinking is mainly outdated and most of the legal precedent supporting such behaviour has been overturned.
The removal of such legal status would help end the discrimintation surrounding different types of marriage or no marriage at all: currently people who choose not to marry or who want to marry multiple partners (with full consent from all parties) are just as discriminated against by UK law as same-sex marriages.
I think this discussion has gone way beyond StatCrux's limited religious thinking and it's time to start thinking outside the envelope: why bother having marriage as a legal instituion in the first place?
Sum ergo sum