The State was empowered HOW?

This actually makes no sense on any level that I can acsertain.

Do you want government in the marriage business? Or out?

I’m no libertarian, and that is for sure. Still, this screed makes no sense at all to me.

IMO, the most plausible way that government control over marriage licenses could be curtailed would be to only allow govt. officials (Justices and the like) to administer the legal documents of marriage certification. Even so, it’s unlikely that this would work, as it would require the participation of social conservatives, and it would read too much like an attack on the church for their tastes.

To answer your question about “no-fault divorces”, 1) this would be a non-issue if the government sponsorship of marriage was abolished, and 2) I don’t know about other libertarians, but I would favor its removal if a counterpart could be found to facilitate the legal functions that “no-fault divorces” serve (e.g., equitable distribution of the shared finances (wow, that sounds socialist, doesn’t it ), custody of the children, etc.).

You’re detailed description of the inner-workings sounds a bit like the voice of experience. My sympathies.

When you enter into the realm of intimate relationships, when they go bad, the intense emotions and loss do not interact well with the dispassionate world of law or the bureaucratic rigidity of governmental action.

I mean, if people could act amicably and reasonably to dissolve a marriage relationship, then they wouldn’t need much from the state other than to register the necessary forms. But in many cases, if spouses could negotiate a divorce, that would mean they could communicate with each other, which in many cases means that they wouldn’t be getting a divorce in the first place.

Outside agents (friends, family, social workers, counselors, etc.) can calm things or they can intensify conflict – that depends on the luck of the draw. But society isn’t going to return to “at-fault” divorce, with all the abuses of the system that entailed.

Bottom line: divorce is ugly. Law cannot put lipstick on that pig and make it attractive.

Breaking news as of a few days ago:

The extraterrestrials who landed in Massachusetts in 2004 demanding marriage for their kind decided in 2006 that they really didn’t want to be married after all!

A long court and contentious legislative and philosophical battle, complete with tens of millions of dollars wasted and hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon footprint expended initially allowed the extraterrestrials to marry, and then it took two years to allow them to divorce themselves. I blame the Massachusetts court system, and global warming.

Read more about the extraterrestrials here, at the Huffington Post:

“Extraterrestrials Divorce!” After Changing Massachusetts Law, the extraterrestrial couple decided they really weren’t that interested in each other, so much, after all.

But their legacy will live forever!

The greatest farce about marriage is that it is not a contract, but in the courts we treat its dissolution as one.

If we simply made all “marriages” a contractual civil obligation (civil union, if you must) the purpose of which is to develop a household for mutual security and the potential to foster progeny, it would be much simpler. Dissolution would be covered in the contractual documentation, rather than deciding after-the-fact.

Many couples already do this with a pre-nuptial agreement. The division of property, legal responsibilities and rights, etc, would all be decided in the marriage contract.

But it’s offensive to people to have a marriage contract. So we don’t have them.

Which is precisely why marriage should never be codified under the law, except possibly for mere registration…

Married couples receive tax benefits and all sorts of goodies from the government (which is justified in the sense that ‘traditional’ family feeds more people on one salary).

I personally don’t think the government should be involved in the bedroom. I think that they should be allowed to consider their ‘partners’ for stuff like hospital visits, burials. insurance, etc.

HOWEVER, the gay rights activists want to me to declare their lifestyle acceptable ,and teach children in public schools such. I will never declare that immoral choice ”moral’, and I retch at the thought of having my tax dollars subsidize the immorality of others / causes I do not believe in .

I don’t understand your leap of logic from ‘no-fault divorce’ to ‘one partner being thrown out of the house’. As I understand it, before no-fault divorce, if a couple couldn’t stand each other and wanted to split up, they would have to agree that one of them would accuse the other of something that was standing for divorce (or one of them would have to go do something that was standing, which is arguably worse). So people would have to lie just to get out of a marriage that neither wanted any longer. How is this a good thing, as you claim?

The universe. Usually preceeded by the phrase “If only”, as in “If only we didn’t have welfare programs, then we could have open borders.” or, “If only we didn’t have mandatory emergency medical treatment, then cyclists could be free to splatter their brains on the pavement, and garbage trucks, not ambulances, would respond to drug OD’s.” By waving their hands at the “If only” utopian universe, Libertarians can avoid the hard decisions the rest of us have to make in the real world.

To the point of the OP, “If only” we didn’t have the income tax, then we wouldn’t need the dozens of laws pertaining to equitable taxation of a family unit. But we do, so every word of the phrase “equitable taxation of a family unit” becomes political, requiring political decisions that will never satisfy everybody, least of all, the Libertarian.

…and that comes with the theory that the state is going to eventually coerce the various churches into sanctioning gay marriage. While possible in a slippery slope sense, some liberal Christian denominations would, if given the opportunity, sanction same-sex marriages right now.

The trick, however, would be in getting the progressive Left to accept an open marketplace in terms of religious marriage ceremonies… gays would be able to “shop” for a church that would marry them, and people who have strong moral objections to gay marriage can “shop” for a church that does not condone the practice. The problem, of course, being that while libertarians seek a common-ground solution to the problem, people on the left seek to deny freedom of religious expression and people on the right seek to define a government-recognized contract in strictly religious terms (after all, marriage is more than a religious institution in America; if it were not, we wouldn’t allow the local Justice of the Peace to marry people…).

…who fled England and Holland to come to America. They landed at Plymouth, then founded Massachusetts Colony…

And promptly started punishing anyone who didn’t follow their religious beliefs.

They became exactly what they hated.

We hate that public prayer is punished in schools. We hate that Christianity is seen as hateful, when in fact it is supposed to be about Christ’s love and redemption through His sacrifice by crucifixion.

Demonizing homosexuals is not going to change that opinion. Is what they do a sin? There is no doubt that Deuteronomy declares homosexuality to be a sin.

But as Christ said, let he who has no sin cast the first stone. We are all sinners. While I do not condone homosexual behavior, I also do not condone those who stand in front of Sanford Stadium every Saturday home game and condemn me and call me a sinner for drinking alcohol (and as I am forever stone-cold sober, that’s really insulting).

No, America is about Individual Freedom, not about being forced to live a Christian Lifestyle.

If two people start a business, keep it for three years, and then one decides to get out, who is the arbiter for that separation? The government. Do you think libertarians have some other idea of how this should be handled? Why should they want it to be different in marriage – an institution that government treats the same as a business contract?

If you want a sacrament, join the Catholic Church. The Church doesn’t recognize divorces by the government (once you’re married in the Church, you are married until death. Annulments “annul” the sacrament. In other words, the sacrament was never actually valid.) The Catholic Church only begrudgingly recognizes government marriages as a “natural law marriage,” not the sacrament it could have been.

Let homosexuals sign contracts to share their rights and property. Don’t call it a marriage, because that would be misleading (it doesn’t fit the definition of “natural law marriage.”) Call them civil unions or something. The government should be the arbiters if a civil union ends – how else do you justly divide the property and rights of the two involved in the contract?