Why is the government even involved in ANY personal relationship at all?

[liberalhistorian]

All of these hysterical blowhards frantically trying to "save" marriage from the ravages of those horrible, evil gays and all of their sheeple minions who're going along in lockstep have got me thinking about this question.

Did you know that until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the government wasn't even involved in even traditional marriage at all? There were none of the many, many benefits tied only to marriage that there are now. And that's the way it should be. Marriage brings hundreds of both tangible and intangible legal, financial, economic, tax, insurance and social benefits that are only available to those relationships which the GOVERNMENT has decided are worthy of them when the state has no business at all deciding any such thing for anyone.

There are literally hundreds of benefits, both tangible and intangible, that can be gotten only through marriage, period. I don't think most people even realize that, even married people, but those of us who are single and well into adulthood are more aware of that than others. And as a former real estate paralegal and historian who's researched these issues, particulary in regard to rights of property ownership in marriage and dower rights, I can guaran-damn-tee you that that is very much the case. And that is just plain wrong.

We need to go back to the way it was before the state got involved at all and started tying all kinds of legal, financial, economic, insurance, tax, and social benefits to marriage and defined marriage in a certain way. Taxes and social security are especially infuriatingly unfair areas in this regard. Why do you think it's so important to so many gays to be able to marry, as they should be?

Conservatives are irritating in this respect because they're always screaming about "getting government off our backs", "less intrusive government", "individual freedom", etc., etc., blahblahblah, and they absolutely refuse to see the blatant hypocrisy of their activism in this regard and their attempt to shove their own version of what personal lives should be down everyone else's throat. They and the state need to leave our private lives and decisions the hell alone, quit deciding that certain benefits can only be had through marriage, and get out of the business of deciding which relationships are worthy of state sanction and which should be criminalized or denied blessing.

Remember, it really wasn't that long ago that interracial marriages were legally forbidden in more than half the states. Hard to believe now, but I see the same unfair injustice in regards to gay marriages. Few things piss me off more than people sticking their nose into the private lives of others, and that includes the government. Let people make their own decisions regarding relationships, including whether they even want to be officially married or not, and quit tying benefits and rights of property ownership, etc., etc. solely to marriage as defined by the state.