RE:
https://infosec.exchange/@guyjantic/116564009962120990
This wasn't idle musing. I don't have the answers, but I grew up
#Mormon, with stories of the
#LDS leaders being hunted and imprisoned for, IDK, maybe 5 decades, for practicing polygamy. The morality, reality, propaganda, etc. of that aside: I grew up in the US West bathed in stories of the Evil Government abusing my ancestors, ignoring other people abusing them, and then passing laws specifically to abuse them about their marriage choices (AFAIK
#polygamy is illegal in the USA because of the moral panic surrounding Mormon polygamy in the 1800s). I grew up with the idea firmly in my mind that the government should stay the heck out of the marriage and relationship business.
Then that same church spent tons of money lobbying the US government to get involved in the marriage business--specifically, to make gay marriage illegal. The LDS leaders, those dry, boring, suit-wearing, drama-eschewing Men Of The Earth Etc., wrote amicus briefs in multiple court cases asking governments to get up in the marriage business of other people, told the faithful (and it's extremely authoritarian; the faithful believe what they're told to believe) that gay marriage was super duper evil, and even pressured/commanded (kind of the latter, but with plausible deniability) thousands of members in California and Hawaii to go door to door to convince their neighbors to vote against legalization of gay marriage.
After I left (a bit over a decade ago) the church doubled down, led by a new wave of far-right "fire and brimstone" men, and degraded the membership rights and privileges of gay and trans members... and their children.
But the message that the government could maybe stay the fuck out of people's relationships (I can say "fuck" now) is still in my head and heart. I don't know all the consequences or how it would work, but I think the government should let marriage be a personal and maybe religious experience with no government involvement whatsoever.
Open quoted post Quoting
RE:
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116561963868992538
Have we considered just getting the government out of relationships as much as possible? I know it's not that easy, but we seem weirdly tied to the idea that intimate relationships must be a legal thing.
