by Jennifer Roback Morse
Far from settling the marriage debate, ‘getting the state out of marriage’ will reduce liberty, leave cultural questions simmering, and harm our nation’s children.
One proposed solution to the divisiveness of the same-sex marriage debate is to have the government get out of the marriage business altogether. This proposal is appealing because it seems to remove marriage from the realm of political contentiousness. We could mimic a market-type solution, in which individuals can make their own decisions about the meaning of marriage, and we need not make any collective decision. But these appearances are deceiving. We need to think through what it actually means to say that the government should “get out of the marriage business.”
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2009.03.10.001.pdart
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I think the freemarket/Ron Paul-esque thinkers don't necessarily mean get the government out of marriage, but get the FEDERAL government out of marriage - that includes defining or regulating it, as this requires money and my taxpayer dollars shouldn't be used for that (at least not in Washington). Let states decide what marriage is. Some states will not allow homosexual marriages and some states will. It's not for me, in Massachusetts, to impose our will on the state of Texas, in other words. This is why the Roe v. Wade decision is still a hot debate 30-some odd years later: because the supreme court acted as a legislative body when it shouldn't have, and it just so happens the nature of that invasion into Congress' responsibilities was shocking.
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