Unconventional opinions

[Ben Davis]

Why is the entire slant of your response 'why should married couples have greater rights' when I explicitly said in my post that they shouldn't? Did you read and reply to my post one paragraph at a time?

No, it's because you said lots of other things too. Apologies for giving you a full response!

I'm from the UK, so I'm well aware - hence my final statement that I agree that greater rights shouldn't exist. The amount is pretty negligible (I think at best it's about 100 quid a year), but I certainly disagree on a matter of principle. I also agree that the reason marriage is so popular is because of cultural, including religious, history. But in the same way that we don't bat an eyelid at people celebrating Christmas in a secular way, marriage has been adopted outside of those constraints. I don't see a problem with it, if that's what makes people happy.

As an additional comment, it's not just tax, it's familial bodily rights, inheritance rights, access to children in the case of separation... the list is large and impacts many areas of 'family' life.

But overall we agree: get legislation out of marriage. Of course takes us back to the 'freedom of marriage means freedom from marriage' point.

And I agree with your postscript. It leads me to ask the question: why do the government and state religion insist on maintaining them?