http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/cou ... 51250.html

Why are we, as a nation, still talking about this? We shouldn't be protesting the fact that government won't give a marriage license to gay people. We should be protesting the fact that anyone, gay or straight, needs the government's permission to get married. It's not illegal to live together without a marriage, and it saves you the cost of paying the fee to get government's permission.

The only people who should benefit from a marriage ceremony are religious people. So, if you're religious, go get your priest, minister, or shaman to perform a wedding ceremony for you. He can do that without the government's permission too, you know. If you're not religious, then why do you even care?

Worried about inheritance issues? Make a will - A simple will is cheaper than a marriage license fee.

Want your partner to be able to visit you in a hospital? Fill out documents while you're healthy giving your partner power of attorney if you're unfit - also cheap and easy. I'm talking about gay people AND straight couples here.

It wouldn't be that big of an undertaking to get marriage completely out of government: Taxes are already cheaper for two single people living together than for a married couple. Deductions for children don't require marriage. Divorce laws would simply need to be tweaked so that they apply to any people wanting to split up commonly owned property, which is basically all that a court divorce proceeding is. Child custody issues are already handled for unmarried couples every day.

In short, marriage is a religious institution that the rest of the country has adopted. It should never have been incorporated into the law to start with. Marriage licenses were mostly started during the Jim Crow era to give government a way to prevent black men from marrying white women. We don't need them.

Oh, I know there are other questions: How will we keep old men from marrying 12 year old girls? How will we prevent polygamy? Guess what: One man can legally live with and have sexual relations with multiple women in this country, and we already have laws (varying by state) about the age of consent for youngsters. Pretty much any issue concerning marriage is already covered by other laws or else could be handled very easily through a document like a will or limited power of attorney.

We need to have laws on the books about child custody, inheritance, dividing jointly owned property, and even visitation and power of attorney rights in medical cases, but those laws do not need to be based on the religious institution of marriage.

There are things like medical decisions when your living and such that marriage gives you legal rights too.

I covered that.

I agree with ya there marriage is just so.. outdated.
Governments should tax people as individuals period, I tried to find a clip with Doug Stanhope about this but since my sound don't work on this comp i could not confirm if i found the right one.

Yeah next they will allow curved (not straight) people to adopt..
I think curveness should not be .. well, encouraged. I do know that those who are curved were born like that, not that they felt like going down the other path...

Tax revenue.

Pretty sure you can tax gay couples, not to mention the amount of business the millions of extra marriage ceremonies would bring.

But you cant tax thier kids

Ho ho. But seriously, I don't see how this relates to tax revenue.

Kainsien economics, which the US is based on, assumes a larger growing population, Gays do not have kids, sure they adopt, but they don't produce future taxpayers. No future taxpayers = unsustainable spending. Can't barrow off of people that don't exists.

But gay people can already live together as couples. I'm not too familiar with tax law but someone claimed that two single people living together pay lower taxes than a married couple; if that's true then I really don't see where you're going with this.

PRODUCE NO FUTURE TAXPAYERS. The amount we allow ourselves to barrow is based off of what the number of future taxpayers will be. How much they will pay in taxes. If you need anymore detail get an econ book.

Thanks, I had enough econ in college. Unless you are suggesting that treating gay marriage like traditional marriage will somehow induce people to choose gay marriages over straight marriages for themselves, I fail to see how this would reduce the size of the next generation. Everyone who was going to get married and have kids will do it no matter whether gay marriage is legal.

Its not predictable. Econ is based of what you can predict. You know trend data. By disallowing it the govt in essence is trying to be able to keep the population to a trend that they can predict.

population decline does not automatically mean economic decline.

and a population reduction is GOOD. the earth is fast approaching the limits of sustainable population

and we already have unsustainable spending

your arguments are completely refuted by the fact that the things you think will happen that are bad, have already happened. they are already happening.

poofs being allowed to marry has absolutely NOTHING to do with the economy and you fucking know it.