You left out "color, creed,& national origin". Those are also part of the Civil Rights Act. I believe your scenario would fall under "creed".Quote:
Originally Posted by hangman
SarahG wrote:
"Next of kin" isn't about wills. There's no law that says you owe your immediate family anything upon your death. People can & do write their wills any way they please. Once you're dead, what do you care about probate suits?Quote:
But if it were simply for establishing next of kin- then there is no point for having marriages, people could merely go out and make wills stipulating where they want their assets et al to go when they die.
Nah. The licence is cheap. It's just a recording fee. It covers handling & permanent storage of the public document. I don't really have a problem with keeping track of who's who. We keep records of births, deaths, adoptions, familial & name changes. It's basically just census data. The problem comes with the binding legal contract that comes with the licence & all the regulation over individual life choices. Based on what? We're back on this "I don't like that so you can't have it!" routine. The licencing procedure gives the state too much power to abuse. We already have laws that protect children from adult coersion, so aside from that, the only stipulation should be that the choice of someone's next of kin has to be another human being in order to be recognized & recorded. Sexual practices not only shouldn't be a factor, they shouldn't even be assumed based on the gender of the principals.Quote:
I think that in most cases all the marriage license is and originally was, was a way to raise funding for local governments, but when combined with eliminating common law marriages it does come off disconcerting... especially since there is no real benefit to the gov's hand in the picture.
I'm up in the air about "civil unions". I've heard good arguments from all sides. Marriage is a civil union when it has anything to do with the state. The problem I have is in setting different parameters depending on who's unionizing. The government isn't allowed to discriminate, so if they're going to write the contract, it has to be exactly the same across the board.