Marriage - My Changed Position

By Tom Rhodes, 3/6/2013

I am a self proclaimed Christian Libertarian, and have defended the traditional definition of marriage and been against so called Gay-Marriage. My position has been that government shouldn't be in the marriage business, Period! Now I renounce my position and now support broader definitions of marriage. Not because I've changed my views or beliefs, but pragmatically it would be a wonderful method to hamstring government a little. The basis of legal homogamy is that if two people "love" each other they should be able to have long term committed relationship and legal rights as if they were "one" regardless of sex.

As the discussion in the Supreme Court has indicated, once homogamy is legal, the rationale for limiting polygamy will be non-existent. In fact a wide variety of "marriage" types would be viable. Read Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" for an in depth discussion on various types of marriages including two men and one women called a "troika," as well as "polyandries, clans, groups, lines, and less common patterns considered vulgar by conservative people."

Here is why I now support legal homogamy: It will save the family farm. Every year family farms are broken up and sold (usually to big conglomerates) because of the death of the farmer, the inheritance taxes are so great to pay them the farm must be sold. Once marriage has been redefined to be a joining of people who love each other not just a man and one or more women, the family farm will be saved. Legal homogamy will lead to the end of all inheritance taxes. As Jeremy Irons correctly identified, a father could marry his son to avoid inheritance taxes.

The homosexual mantra is that if two individuals love each other they should be able to marry each other and receive the legal benefits of marriage. This will be a boon to partnerships of all kinds, two, or even three, four, or a dozen, who are partners in a business and want to avoid taxes and other legal intrusion of the government in their business could just get married. This would pretty much end any type of inheritance tax and insure the orderly transition of property from generation to generation without it being gobbled up by the government.

Like virtually all government regulation, there are unintended consequences. If we accept the idea that homosexuality is no longer immoral, what grounds do we have for not similarly declaring incest, polygamy, or any type of "love" to be morally acceptable as well? The homosexual lobby has not offered logical reasoning to this question. If traditional marriage, accepted by virtually all societies for thousands of years is no longer valid, why can't any variation of marriage be valid?

The objective truth is that two men or two women cannot ever marry because marriage is a particular relationship between a man and one or more women. Marriage and its definition predate every government on earth. Government didn't create marriage so should define it either. What is clear is that if the government doesn't get out of the marriage business, marriage will be meaningless and just another means of avoiding government taxes, and not a foundational institute of society.

In as much as the government generally perverts and corrupts most things it touches, marriage is no exception. Let's go ahead and allow any type of "marriage" to be legal, it will be the best method to insure pass down our property to our progeny and other loved ones. Widow or Widower near death yourself, don't want all your property to get gobbled up in taxes the solution is easy, marry your grandkid, that way when you die all your wealth is passed down without the government getting its greedy paws on it. Legalizing homogamy makes "marriage" meaningless, as long as we are going to do that, let's take advantage of it and screw the government out of inheritance taxes all together.