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Comment by hacknat

Your sentiment, while admirable, is a libertarian pipe dream. Even the most liberal countries in the world still get involved in marriage. While I am by no means a social conservative, I do agree with conservatives that the family is the foundational institution of civil society (and a lot of anthropological research supports this argument). Governments will be more or less involved with it to some degree, both to foster it economically and encourage it socially. To see the American social contract as having been set up to never have to encounter or acknowledge any spiritual/religious institutions is bad history, we have simply always held that the government cannot be in the practice of encouraging one over the other.

Taking the long view, conservatives (and others) should be rejoicing. This ruling is a broad expansion of the definition of what the government will recognize as a family, a definition that is of consequence to numerous helpful social programs, and an affirmation of what family is in civil society. The ruling will have enormous social benefits for our society.

parent hacknat 11 years ago

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