> And families headed by a non-hetero or non-couple can't raise children? What about other non-traditional family types? (E.g. a grandparent and a parent, two or three adult siblings raising their younger siblings without parents, a couple raising their nieces/nephews/godchildren, the family in Full House etc.) You gonna make those illegal too?
There is raising children and there is the creation of children. The argument was that the government incentivized marriage because it led to both the creation of children as well as their raising in a stable home.
Non-traditional guardians (homos, grandparents, etc.) can obviously raise children, but they cannot make them.
That is likely how marriage ended up governed by the state. You are correct that it was rooted in religion, so thanks for the example.
Imo, marriage should not be regulated by the government. It is a derived of and should remain in religious institutions.
Instead, the government can come up with a private partnership, which would easily do everything marriage does without the underlying religious debate and exclusions.
> the government incentivized marriage because it led to both the creation of children
Except this part is false. Because, as I mentioned previously, not every hetero marriage could lead to creating children. There have never been any strong religious restrictions on old people, or people with known infertility getting married in Western society.
> the government can come up with a private partnership, which would easily do everything marriage does without the underlying religious debate and exclusions.
So...marriage? In US law at least, there aren't any religious components to marriage. No religious body needs to be involved to have a marriage be legally valid. You go down to city hall, get a marriage license, and you're done. There's no legal requirement that a religious institution that objects to a marriage, for any reason, has to perform that marriage. Can divorced Catholics remarry in a Catholic church now, without getting a dispensation?
Now if your objection is to the use of the word "marriage" to refer to partnerships that certain religions don't agree with...I don't really know what to say. That's everyday language at work. You can't stop people from using words the way they want. And it's not a real problem that the government should be involved in.
There is raising children and there is the creation of children. The argument was that the government incentivized marriage because it led to both the creation of children as well as their raising in a stable home.
Non-traditional guardians (homos, grandparents, etc.) can obviously raise children, but they cannot make them.
That is likely how marriage ended up governed by the state. You are correct that it was rooted in religion, so thanks for the example.
Imo, marriage should not be regulated by the government. It is a derived of and should remain in religious institutions.
Instead, the government can come up with a private partnership, which would easily do everything marriage does without the underlying religious debate and exclusions.