Greetings! This is my first official "Don't Box Us!" contribution, provided "frequent profile tweakings" are excluded. I'll tell you right off the bat: this post isn't nearly as fleshed-out as I'd have liked it to be, but I wanted to get the bare necessities down before something bright and shiny steals my attention again.
And so, my friends, caveat lector.
Last week, Stephan Kinsella posted an article in the Mises.org blog entitled, "How Can Bigamy Be Illegal?" I'll attempt to distill it here:
The state fails to accept responsibility when an illegal second marriage has been granted. Indeed, the criminality of bigamy seems, according to Kinsella, to mean the submitting of certain documents rather than the act itself, since marriage alone is perfectly legal.
That the state plays a part in enabling illegal activity while simultaneously condemning it is a curious hypocrisy. Kinsella notes how the drug trade is comprised of what appear to be legally-recognized "sales", without being characterized strictly as "the physical transfer of money if it is somehow associated with the physical transfer of possession of narcotics." He goes on to discuss the history of the phrase "legal tender" and its place in contractual obligation, but that isn't what I wanted to get into. At least, not today.
Let me state for the record that I find the Mises blog to be one of the most intelligent blogs out there, and that I regularly enjoy Kinsella's work. In fact, I could find only a minor bone--a phalanx, perhaps--to pick with Kinsella about this one. It would have been worth mentioning that marriage, as recognized by the state, may be a legal institution, but its true nature is religious. Ergo, why does the state recognize marriage as legal at all, when religion and public policy are supposed to keep off one another's lawns, so to speak?
I used to believe that all marriages between and among consenting individuals should be recognized as legal by whichever states deem it so. The more I think about it, though, civil unions should be the basis for the rights and privileges now conferred to "married" individuals, whereas marriage should be an optional religious complement to a legally-recognized union.
I still maintain, however, that we should protest a federal mandate in either direction.
Ah, it's good to dream the impossible dream.
(I should note that I don't really believe that many things are impossible, though I do recognize the unlikelihood of, say, a nickel ever costing more to mint than it is actually worth.)
Oh, wait...
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2 comments:
Nice post. I don't disagree marriage is a religious-private-social institution, and ought to be (with legal effects). My point is that from the state's perspective they are penalizing a status--"having a legal relationship," which legal status the state itself has granted and recognizes. It just makes no sense to me. The state should just declare that any second attempt at marriage doesn't "take". They could penalize this attempt if they want (because clearly living with someone is not illegal), but would you label "misuse of state documents" bigamy?
BTW my most recent thoughts on gay marriage are here.
Thanks for the feedback. I do realize that what I chose to focus on was not the chief purpose of your article so much as a detail that I think many people choose to overlook when talking about marriage.
It seems odd to me, too, to think that the state can criminalize a status that it permits. Would "misuse of state documents" fall under fraud? Because "attempted additional marriage" sounds a bit daft.
Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if an expanded definition of bigamy would someday include "misuse of state documents", even if that isn't the case just yet.
I reviewed your "The Libertarian View on Gay Marriage" article. I think it is an unfortunate tendency of many gay marriage advocates to appeal at a federal level. When I was in college, there was a lot of talk about contacting your senators to vote for X bill supporting gay marriage, and almost no talk at all about taking action at the state level.
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