Gay Marriage

So here is how to solve the gay marriage debate.

The problem: Gay people want the same rights as straight people to marry and to share all of the legal protections that come with it. Many religious people object to allowing gay people to get married as marriage is an important and holy sacrament and in many churches being gay is considered a sin.

The solution: Separation of church and state. The government should stop marrying people as marriage is a religious institution. Instead, the government should offer a domestic partnership arrangement that allows any two people to form a household. This would be similar to marriage but not exactly the same and would carry no assumption of a romantic or sexual relationship. It might even have a couple of different options for exactly how linked the couple wish to be (just financial, financial and medical power of attorney, etc...). In most cases, ending the domestic partnership would be a simple matter of both parties agreeing to end it and dividing up any common assets. If the couple are also both parents of a child, then the welfare of the child(ren) would require some continued relationship (child support or whatever).

Churches and other religious organizations would be free to marry whoever they wanted. They could choose to only allow opposite gendered people with the same hair color to get married or marry any two mammals. But this religious ceremony would carry with it no legal consequences and would not be recognized by the government.

This would give gays the exact same rights as straight people while also allowing for other sorts of partnerships (elderly siblings, two single parents who want to pool their resources, a parent and child pooling resources, etc...). It would also get the government out of the "marriage" business allowing churches to make their own determination of who they would marry or not marry. I think that many religious people would no longer object if the government stopped sanctioning "marriage" and instead offered a non-religious contract.

For multiple spouses or group marriages, I would suggest just using current partnership/corporate law and letting the group form a partnership of some kind. Allowing more than two to form a domestic partnership might allow for abuses by people wanting to start a company and avoid corporate taxes or some other aspect of corporate law.

Technorati: Marriage, Government, Religion