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Originally Posted by LetUsReason
Are you limiting the privatization to two people? The next frontiers of the Left are group "marriages" and pedophilia. A marriage is the basic unit of any functional society. Governments incentivize marriage because it is the social construct that best produces good citizens and grooms the next generation to take part in society constructively. That is why government has historically been involved in marriage. Now with gay marriage and all of its downstream implications, you can make the argument that the original reason to support traditional marriage has been corrupted. The argument boils down to the fact that children need a mother and father to thrive best. If governments are incentivizing gay marriages, this contradicts the reason for incentivizing marriage in the first place. As I see it, either we get back to incentivizing traditional marriages for the reasons stated above, or we get out of government being involved in marriage altogether. However, there is also the moral aspect to this. Government is established by God to affect the safety and civility of the citizens. Morality has a huge part in this, and it is government's job to curtail behaviors that have a deleterious effect on society. One could argue that since traditional marriage is the necessary base building block of any good society, a government needs to somewhat be involved in prohibiting certain types of "marriages" that would have a negative impact on society. It will not stop with gay marriage. At some point, government must intervene. For instance, incestuous relationships or pedophilic relationships. My concern is if the government gets out of marriage totally, how does society not eventually destroy itself given these eventualities? Just some thoughts to chew on.
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Government involvement with marriage is limited Biblically to refusing to recognise Divinely forbidden unions and punishing them accordingly, and providing rewards to proper Biblical unions. "Licensing" is technically a usurpation of Divinely established parental authority. Preachers never did have Biblical authority to "officiate" marriages.