Intern Speech - A Defense of Stateless Marriage

On Monday, we had to do speeches in the Cato Intern class. I was out of town Wednesday through Friday of the previous week and I have no access to my Cato email at home, so I didn't know about the speeches until the morning of. I got in at 9 and I had to have my speech ready by 10. Needless to say, it is not my best work but I support the points I was trying to make. Here it is, in all its glory!

"We as libertarians believe that less is more (in terms of government anyways.) Libertarians agree, almost completely, on eliminating government’s role in a variety of issues, but there are still a few issues where large disagreements remain. Take marriage for example: there is a large group that believes the government should be involved in order to protect everyone’s rights while another group believes that government has no place in marriage.

In my opinion, marriage should be a personal issue and not regulated by the government. While it may cause some problems with the current tax code, adoption laws, etc., marriage should be removed from the state’s authority, and left up to churches and organizations.

Government should not be involved in this very personal institution. Marriage should be left to individuals and their churches and / or organizations. I say organization for those who do not attend church or practice a religion. If I, personally, do not believe that homosexuals should get married, I would go to a church that does not allow that. If I wanted to get married to another man or I supported others that do, I could find a church that supports gay marriage. It’s that simple. No laws have to be passed. No one is forced to accept another’s morality. When we try to legislate our morality, things get really messy, really quick.

With this approach to the subject, problems do arise. I personally have a passion for working with kids and I plan to adopt when I get older. The first questions and issues I have with a stateless marriage, have to deal with adoption. What happens when a couple adopts and then they break up? Who determines custody of the child? To be honest, there is no easy answer to this. When dealing with children, more precautions are needed. They cannot protect themselves like adults can. An option to deal with the adoption problem would be to set up agreements before the adoption takes place as to how it would be handled if a divorce came about. Another, less pleasing option, would be to require adoption agencies to set up these agreements before hand. This would require state intervention, but it would be nothing like the marriage monopoly that we currently have. Also, because state has the authority to protect its citizens, if children are being hurt by their parents or are being mistreated due to the circumstances they are in, the state could step in.

If a couple has children on their own, the same principals would apply. Hopefully they would set up an agreement as to the children, but in the divorce settlement they could also sort out the issue.

On the same lines, what happens to property and possessions when there is a divorce? If a couple believes that this will be an issue (not all will obviously) they can write up a contract with a lawyer to go along with their church wedding agreement. By making sure that they have an agreement set up before, they will have no problems if they separate. Property issues are much easier to deal with than the issue of children.

In order for the state to get out of the marriage business we would also have to reshape the tax code. The institution of marriage is so intertwined with the tax code, everything must be shifted. The government uses this pairing to try to encourage certain moral activities (like getting married instead of living together to pay less taxes). The government should not be in the morality business. A fair tax or a flat tax system would eliminate the reason for tax incentives and allow marriage to be free from the tax code.

While there are problems with removing the state from marriage, they can be resolved with a little thought and practicality. However, if we continue to allow the government to control marriage, it will dictate what we believe in regards to morality and invade even further into our personal lives."