I think marriage is a great idea. People do the damndest things. Hell, I have been married with a lesbian. We can here in the Netherlands.
But what I am against is the state favouring the concept of marriage over another. I am for the state law being purged of any references to the idea marriage. Marriage is not an “intellectual property” where a group of people can dictate what ‘marriage’ is, or should be. I’d strongly express my vote to make this concent (or however other you call it) a strictly private matter.
If I were to go to court in my country with an earnest desire to marry two of my lesbian friends (a three-way marriage) then the court would have to accomodate me, because the state does not ‘discriminate’. That is my position – anyone of sound mind should be able to marry as they see fit.
We now define children as not being of sound mind. I am not decided that’s in itself fair, but I am also not keen on the idea that a 12 year old would be able to marry two 40 year olds, even if the 12 year old insisted ‘equal rights’. So in essence the state has some rights in defining interaction of persoonhood.
That would only make sense if the concept of childhood (or the ststus of animal) were to be regarded as a ‘temporary condition of lessened accountability’. I can envision an adulthood (no I didn’t say adultery you perverts) test where a ‘child’ would seek to be regarded as an ‘adult’, and this having distinctive benefits and drawbacks. In my case I would most certainly have never left the relative protection and I would love being regarded as a child by the state.
So that is what I say – we define marriage as a form of civil contract between adults humans. The forms of this contract should be private matter, perhaps ‘sanctioned’ by another private entity (a “church”, elvis, google, ophrah winfrey).
This should be aside from ‘parenthood’.
The state should stipulate certain requirement when it comes to registered parenthood. Tne state should therein not be able to make gender demands; in my view one woman, one man, two men or two women would be equally suitable parents as the current default. I also add that very soon (ten, twenty years) we will see the creation of human (children) by means of genetic technologies. This child may be a clone, or it might potentially be the creature of combining two ovae. Already offspring have been born from the union of two sperm cells and one ovum.
The state should be proactive in making sure these unions are not abusive – i.e. that prospective children do not become subject to cruel circumstances or a hazard of health. Being born deficient, or disfigured is unacceptable, even though not everyone would agree what constitutes ‘disfigured’. The state should have a power to intervene and decree in this, and my vote would be to have the state make sure all infants grow up well-rounded, healthy, emotionally strong and educated humans able to make somewhat rational choices.
There remains the troubling legal issue of ‘children’ being forced by common law to be regarded as ‘adults’ at a certain arbitrary age but there would be solutions for nebulous areas.
The end result I’d favor is that gifted children should be able to sue for adulthood earlier than the current default range of 18 to 21. In some US states you can’t buy cigarettes or licquor till the subject is well of the age of 27 and I’d regard this as a gross travesty of the law, but let’s not make this overly complicated.
Plus there is another precedent – is a convict an ;adult’ or a ‘child’ ? And what about someone with a dimninished capacity? Is someone who is regarded as ‘mentally handicapped’ or “bankrupt’, and can’t do his or her own finances (and the court places this person in a state of insolvency), is that person noiw legally a child? Or should the state be barred from arbitrary making such potentially predatory categorizations and enforcing them over another human being?
This means that in theory an especially giften child (say of age 13) should be able to sue for a test or ritual or procedure where the child were to be regarded as an adult – and then marry someone age 65.
This idea makes me feel uncomfortable – someone aged 65 might pay such a very gifted child in a predatory contract state, ior a special form of pedosexual prostitution) and there is nothing but potential exploitation written all over it. Byt the current situation is just more unfair, so we have to probably take the bitter with the sweet on this.
The worst possible end result – several very young ‘adults’ ‘marrying’ in quintuplets with one (or several) person of advancing age, and in doing so raising children (of which some grown by genetics) – wiuld be hopefully rare or nonexistent. The common practice will remain to be one man, one woman, 2.3 children and a non-citizen golden retriever. Married in acute misery with a far too high a mortgage and 4 lousy jobs, in turn married to an employer (who is predatory by any standard) who should be legally regarded as pedantic and infantile.
But I am getting ahead of myself 🙂