Monday, March 3, 2008

Not even civil marriage

This blog has previously argued that federal and state governments should separate religious marriage (which should be left to religious communities) and the benefits of civil marriage.

Today's L.A. Times takes this one step further, arguing that Americans should be able to designated whomever they want for benefits otherwise associated with marriage, such as inheritance, hospital visitation, survivor benefits, custody etc. The idea is that since the state has no business determining whether two married people are actually romantically intwined, why should it even bother to associate marriage benefits with marriage? Why can't Americans simply explicitly dictate which benefits they would like with which people?

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