As a side note NEMO, I read the other day that the Gay US
ofA population is around 2% of 310M citizens. There is an aweful lot of noise coming from 2% of the population. Based on the noise volume you would think the Gay population is more around 10-15% of the population.
To continue on this theme you started NEMO: At first glance the whole idea of a marriage certificate may have been .gov's way of managing people. However if you look into it there was a reason. Some of the reasons were:
> Before 1753 in the UK you could get married at any age. The law was in part executed to stop underage
marriage, without the consent of parents of both parties
> With a "legal marriage" (State sanctioned), both parties were guaranteed the right to survivor-ship of property
owned in "Joint Tenancy". This in part was to help women but I am sure some men have benefited too.
> Marriage requirements were left up to each State to dictate by legislative action specifically who could marry
whom, e.g. interracial marriage, polygamist marriage, same sex marriage, etc. The Federal government
wanted nothing to do with this issue...It was a State issue.
Me personalty, I do not care if two consenting
people wish to get married and are of a mature enough nature to do so. I do not care if polygamist marriage happens either as long as all parties are in agreement. Spread the
misery happiness around.