Why should only spouses get benefits?
Marriage fails more often than not
Legal marriageIn my ideal world, homosexuals will not have the legal right to marry. Neither will lesbians, bisexuals, nor transgendered people. That's not discriminatory at all because in my ideal world heterosexuals will not be able to legally marry either. Legal marriages will not exist. I think the idea of a legal marriage is ridiculous. Why is the government sticking its nose in people's private, personal relationships? What's next... a legal friendship? I'll have to register my friends somewhere?
I'm well aware of the origin of marriage. Its roots are not in romance but in conformity to social mores. It tied families together and legitimized the couple's children. Children born out of wedlock were considered unclean bastards who were the shame of the town. Speaking of which... wasn't Jesus born out of wedlock? Why isn't he seen as an illegitimate child, aka a bastard? Did Mary ask to be impregnated? No. That means God raped her, which means baby Jesus was an illegitimate bastard rape baby. Are Christians aware of this? But I digress...
Why should only spouses get benefits?I don't understand why people want the government's stamp of approval on their relationship. Why do they care so much what a bunch of strangers think of their union? Is it just for the tax breaks? And why is the government meddling in people's romantic relationships in the first place? It's none of the government's business who someone chooses to live with, have kids with, and spend their life with. What if John wants to live in a three-way relationship with Susan and Jenny? And suppose the three of them want to adopt a child, or they want the tax breaks that normal married couples get. Why should they be excluded from this just because their union doesn't conform to someone else's ideal of one man and one woman? To be fair to all, we have to legalize not only gay marriage, but polygamous marriage as well. Why is this unacceptable? A better question is, in whose opinion is this unacceptable and why does that person get to decide how John, Susan, Jenny, and their adopted children live out their lives? As long as a child is given food, clothing, and shelter in a safe, caring, loving environment, anyone should be able to adopt him/her.
A person should be able to transfer all the legal benefits associated with marriage to anyone he wishes, or to no one at all. The fact that marriage has any legal benefits to begin with is absurd and irrational. The two should have nothing to do which each other. Just as the State should stay out of religion, it should also stay out of the private lives of consenting adults.
Tax breaks for married couples: Why does the State reward someone just because they were lucky enough to find someone they can marry? What about people who cannot find a life partner? Too bad, I guess. The guy who happens to meet his wife via dumb luck (on a bus) gets tax breaks for the rest of this life. But the guy who wasn't lucky enough to meet someone... he doesn't get tax breaks. So whether you get tax breaks or not depends on dumb luck. Is that really how the government should decide such things?
Also, why do State adoption agencies care whether a couple is married or not? Nothing magical happens when they wed. Their ability to care for children or interact with each other does not magically improve just because they sign a piece of paper.
Marriage fails more often than notAlmost half of all first marriages in the United States fail. The divorce rate is currently 41% (Source: divorcerate.org). Of the 59% that stay married, most of them stay together only because of children, finances, religious beliefs, tradition, peer & parental pressure, shame of divorce, or something like that. If the only thing keeping a couple together is the inconvenience of divorce, then romantically-speaking their marriage has already failed. This means that as far as healthy relationships go, the majority of marriages fail. Why then, do people continue to get married?
It is irrational to promise to spend the rest of your life with someone. Sure you may like them now, but will you like them years later? My girlfriend likes me now, but what if ten years from now I turn into a violent, abusive, cheating, lying alcoholic? I guess she has to spend the rest of her life living with this horror of a human being because she promised to. Right? Wrong! You should only stay with someone because they make you happy and because you want to be with them, not because you repeated some priest's scripted words many years ago.
According to marital vows, a woman has to stay with her husband even if he goes completely insane and kills random strangers for no reason. "Till Death Do Us Part" means only their death can separate them, which means she has to stay married to him even when he's incarcerated. Realistically of course, she'll get a divorce and everyone will support her in that decision, but that means she'll have broken her marital vows. So what good are marital vows if they can be broken with both legal and social approval? And what good is a marriage if you can have the whole thing annulled the next day? What non-legal benefits does marriage give a couple that they didn't have before? A life-long commitment? As I said, making a life-long commitment to someone is irrational, as evidenced by the high divorce rate.
Unconditional love
Unconditional love means exactly what is says: No conditions have to be satisfied for a person to love someone. So let's say John's wife loves him unconditionally. That means she will love him no matter what. She just discovered that he's a serial rapist because he was recently arrested. So despite John's crimes, his wife will continue to love him. Such love would be a symptom of an underlying emotional illness. It's like a wife that stays with her abusive husband who treats her like trash and uses her as a punching bag. If you unconditionally love someone, that means you will love that person no matter what they do. Back-stab, rob, rape, steal, murder, torture, war atrocities, child rape, etc. "It's all good, I still love you dear!" That is the definition of "unconditional".If that's not the case, meaning if John has to be a decent person to earn his wife's love, then that means his wife never loved him unconditionally in the first place. "Unconditional" means there are no conditions to satisfy, but realistically there are conditions John must satisfy: He must not rape and murder people, he must not torture animals, he must not beat her unconscious every day with a baseball bat, etc. There are lots of conditions he must satisfy.
Only an emotionally disturbed person can truly love someone unconditionally. So if someone claims to love you unconditionally, that person is either emotionally ill, or more likely... hasn't really though about the meaning of "unconditional".
Dogs are often said to love unconditionally but even that is false. If sufficient abuse of the animal takes place, the dog will cease loving his abusive master, which means the dog never loved him unconditionally in the first place. So even dogs have conditions you must meet before they'll love you.
Parents are said to love their children unconditionally but I think this is untrue as well. Imagine for a moment that a son shoots both his parents at close range with a shotgun in order to get his inheritance money faster, and after shooting them he laughs and urinates on the corpses. This is not an exaggeration by the way, sadly such people do exist. If one of the parents survives, imagine they are asked this question while clinging to life in a hospital bed: "Do you still love your son despite the fact that he tried to smear your brains all over the wall with a shotgun to get to your money?" If the parent says "yes" then I will argue that the parent does love his/her son unconditionally but clearly, this parent is emotionally ill. You might argue that love itself is a mild form of insanity but that's another debate altogether.
At this point, most people will say "You're taking this way too literally. That's not what people mean when they say 'unconditional love.'" Okay, so then what do people mean? I suppose that depends on whom you ask. If you ask ten people to interpret "unconditional love", you'll get ten different answers. And that's the problem with interpretation... you can interpret things any way you want and there are no right or wrong answers, which is to say it means whatever you want it to mean.
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