If the benefits come with marriage, how do you separate it?
Well, my argument is that the benefits aren't integral to marriage. They're separate statutes that can change by legislative action without the involvement of any specific couples, and without really fundamentally changing the relationships formed by civil contract between spouses.
What is your legal concept of marriage?
Marriage is the personal relation rising out of a civil contract between the parties.
Again, I'm not sure how you are separating the benefits from the marriage. They all come together. :idunno:
Well, if the question is, 'how do you stop gay couples from receiving the same benefits from marriage that other couples do?', I'd say that the answer is that you don't, and legally can't, the Defense of Marriage Act notwithstanding. As for separating the benefits from marriage itself, I'd observe that marriage is typically covered by dedicated chapters of state law, whereas the benefits are often defined by federal law, and are almost always at least separate law from marriage.
Of course, it's always been true that there are small minorities of people who marry specifically for the benefits. This seems unavoidable, but not unique (or even common) to homosexuals by any means.
True. When zippy says he doesn't care if homosexual couples contract he isn't including the benefits that state-sponsored marriages get.
But he's defining a middle ground that doesn't exist. For one thing, homosexual couples are prohibited from exactly the contract in question by the laws of most states, and changing that would give them access to marriage in all its glory. Also, if we say that they have the same legal right to contract that heterosexuals do, then the only possible way to keep them from the statutory benefits is exactly the kind of invidious discrimination that the Fourteenth Amendment is intended to prohibit.
lain: