Politicians in my state are looking to ban same-sex marriage

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*facepalm*

Well marriege as a social and legal institution exists for the purpose of making children and raising them. Otherwise it's just a relationship.

I don't really think of marriage as having much to do with children. There are already laws to force a deserting parent to support their kids financially, and the legal liability of parents for what their children do is much the same whether it's a marriage or not AFAIK. I think it's more to do with the death of a spouse leading to a degree of automatic right to the deceased's assets. If they're not married then that's rather more difficult in some jurisdictions, and it can lead to severe hardship. I suppose a deserted spouse can force the one who left to support them if there's a need, and maybe that's harder for somebody who's unmarried, but maybe that can be sorted out by drawing up a legal contract.

Rather more worryingly, if you fall in love with somebody from another country, marriage is one of the simplest ways of securing the right to remain together, immigration laws being what they are, so in that sense those politicians could do a lot of damage.

Banning same-sex marriage is hard on the religious couples affected, if they feel strongly that they should be married for religious reasons. But if the church they've signed up to doesn't sanction same-sex marriage, they probably need a different church.

As for social standing where the couple lives, if they're bigoted enough to look down on unmarried couples, they also probably hate same-sex couples, so the only practical solution is to live somewhere that's more tolerant.

Still, I don't like it that politicians want to interfere with marriage. Sounds like they're trying to pander to bigots so they get their vote. Personally I don't see it as anybody else's business to say who can get married and who can't.

My Dd says she got married for tax reasons.

My friend never married her partner. When he died, the legal paperwork giving her power of attorney and medical decision making became irrelevant. His will disposed of his belongings and spelled out his wishes for the handling of his remains. But it turns out, in my state your remains become the property of your next of kin. My friend was considered a “legal stranger”. Her minor child had to take his grandparents to court in order to claim his father’s body and carry out the man’s last wishes.

First up, it's important to remember that a couple of nutjobs who are even being denounced by the Republican Party is very different from there being any actual threat. Wingnuts are constantly proposing bills they know will fail as a way of "virtue signalling" to their base.

The procreation argument is obviously meritless. I mean, for starters, there's no shortage of same-sex parents out there.

I thought SSM was codified into law last year.