Quote:
Originally Posted by AGDee
I fail to see what kids have to do with 1) being able to provide health benefits to your spouse, 2) community property laws, 3) inheritance laws or 4) right to visit a loved one in ICU and make medical decisions for them. Most first marriages don't involve children until after people are married. I don't understand what kids have to do with marriage or civil unions. You can certainly have a child without being married and you can be married and not have children.
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My point is marriage or civil union isn't really required to deliver any of the things you listed, other than providing the terminology of "spouse." We could just decide to let people develop their own contracts for these things if we wanted to.
With health care, why does it make more sense to offer health care benefits to a "spouse" than a roommate or best friend?
When children enter the picture, it changes things to me because instead of individuals with a responsibility only to themselves and each other, you have people connected with the obligation of providing for the children so it would make sense to me to have some default legal standards. But for the rest of us, why elect to privileged one relationship legally above all others?
What interest does the state have in regulating that at all?
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