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In an article posted shortly after the Supreme Court declared marriage a universal right, Mike Adams, editor of the Natural News conspiracy website, decried same-sex couples are “begging the government for a license to marry.”
Should marriage be a renewable term contract?
He viewed the move toward same-sex marriage as more control by Big Brother. “While the gay community is wildly celebrating what they universally see as a victory, none of them are asking the far more important question: Why do we need government permission to get married in the first place?”
It’s a valid question, really, but Adams seemed to miss the deeper point, at least of the court’s action. The issues behind the struggle for same-sex marriage involved legal matters such as taxation, inheritance, adoption rights, hospital visitation and who makes decisions when one’s partner is incapacitated.
Those are the things that are, right or wrong, already regulated by the government, and one of the ways they’re regulated is through the marital contract. For those who want to use it, it can be a great tool — you get to look after your spouse in times of need. You can grant a foreign person citizenship to your own country. And it grants a diversity of tax breaks. Single people essentially pay a tax for not being married.
None of this is especially romantic. Yes, love is involved in these issues, though marriage is not about the right to candle-lit dinners, a spiritual ceremony or a big party with a band playing cover tunes and all your cousins and college friends attending.
“A far more meaningful victory would have achieved the elimination of all government control over marriage. The union of two consenting adults in marriage should never be a matter of government control in the first place,” Adams wrote.