Traditionally marriage is about property rights, for the spouses and children. As such it was effectively a contract, and this is very much in what the government is for, since they will be the ones enforcing the contract if the parties disagree.
In the modern USA especially, a whole package of benefits is tied to being married, from health care to pensions and so on. Again, the government literally must be involved.
All of this is probably the main reason that people pushed so hard for gay marriage. Not having access to all of that was real discrimination.
I would love for marriage to move from being a special thing to being like any other contract, but it would take decades of work to begin to untangle it from the current model.
The amount of religious Americans does keep falling. That is probably the biggest hurdle to getting rid of state involvement in marriage. But you’re looking at probably 50 or 100 years before enough people stop believing in Christianity for this to be possible.
Well, assuming any kind of democratic government. If some authoritarian takes over, then what the people want won’t matter. Although it’s looking more like a Christo-Fascist state than anything else…
Sorry guys, I agree with this take. The tricky part is the legal stuff tied to “single” or “married”, etc but we shouldn’t have distinguished based on that anyway.
Well, yeah, but I believe the implication is that if they were legally married then Exotic’s husband should be a US citizen and shouldn’t have been deported.
Other way around. A US citizen marrying a foreign national grants the foreign national a path towards citizenship.
After looking further into it, however, it’s not an immediate thing. It seems to take 3 years before you can apply for citizenship, and of course you need to remain in the country legally for those 3 years.
A “path” towards citizenship is vague and doesn’t really matter in this new world. ICE has been rounding up noncitizens that are married to us citizens. This has been happening and will continue. This link isn’t even the story I first thought of when I was typing this reply.
That’s bullshit. The government shouldn’t be deporting people for refusing to participate in their system of regulating love. Just let people live where they want.
I think that even if they were legally married, there are instances where they can still be deported. If the person went into or stayed in America “illegally”, they can be deported regardless of marriage status.
You know what? No. “Husband” “Wife” and “Spouse” have a legal meaning that has ramifications in tax and contract law, so I can only assume (especially from someone of his ethical caliber) that using such language is attempted fraud.
Marriage has nothing to do with relationships or love. Never has and never will. Marriage is a contract, whether the terms of that contract is who has power of attorney by default or a mutual defense pact against the Ottoman Empire is up to the betrothed.
Let me provide an example of why this has to be in place: One cannot be compelled to testify against a spouse in court. That protection doesn’t extend to boyfriends, fucktoys or high-speed-low-passes. To prevent that system from being abused, you’re going to need to have a registry somewhere otherwise every court case is going to be “the prosecution can’t call any witnesses because everyone in the English speaking world is my spouse.”
Boyfriend, partner, dicksheath, cumdumpster, codpiece, anklegrabber, better half or significant other, these terms have no legal meaning and thus are perfectly free to use. “Husband” “Wife” and “Spouse” mean “we are parties of a certain standardized, legally binding contract.”
Ain’t nobody should have to snitch to the cops about nothing if they don’t want to. Shouldn’t require marriage at all.
Also, if marriage isn’t about love, then how come you can’t marry your sister? I’m not advocating for sister marriage, I’m just pointing out it definitely is about love, and that’s why marrying your sister is weird.
I think what they were saying is that “marriage” is a legally defined union between two people. A 12 year old child bride will be married - but I wouldn’t have thought love comes into that kind of horrific union.
There’s plenty of people who are not married but are in love with their partner and there are plenty of married couples where the love died long ago; if it even ever existed.
Yeah - a loveless marriage is possibly the saddest place you could ever be. Don’t do it to yourself. (which, admittedly, you seem unlikely to.)
Whilst, yes, abolishing marriage might be a good idea there are certain legal and tax advantages to being married (in some jurisdictions). These would need to be worked out to apply equally to all couples (thrupples, polygamous communes, multi-wife faiths etc.) but wouldn’t be impossible.
People can do whatever they want with their relationships, but if they want a union recognized by the government and the advantages conferred by that, then yes the state can regulate that
No, but he used terminology that implied a legally sanctioned contract. That’s potentially misleading/wrong. It’s lying. But it doesn’t mean anything specific about the state of whatever relationship he may have
In at least some jurisdictions, the process of getting married involves “a marriage license”, and I think of a license as something that provides a privilege to and imposes an obligation upon someone, and potentially multiple privileges and/or obligations.
I’m sure this keeps you up at night tossing and turning that someone used the word husband when it wasn’t technically correct under the strict definition of ThE lEgAl SyStEm
Hello I’m the left’s official spokesperson and I think I can clear up this confusion.
A woman is someone who wants to be a woman.
A husband is someone who wants to be a husband and has consent from the person they’re a husband of.
Both of these words are identities, and letting people be who they want to be when it doesn’t affect other people is one of the values of the left. So you can go ahead and extend this reasoning to all personal identities that don’t harm others, and I think that answers your question.
A husband is someone who wants to be a husband and has consent from the person they’re a husband of.
No, a husband, wife or spouse is in a legal marriage with their partner, and in many jurisdictions carries specific legal rights involving one’s partner. That’s what makes them one of those terms and not a boyfriend, partner, fuckbuddy or whatever else. Unless you want to go the route that every noun or adjective describing a human is an identity, and thus no words for describing people can possibly have any meaning other than “person who applies this label to themselves.”
Both of these words are identities, and letting people be who they want to be when it doesn’t affect other people is one of the values of the left. So you can go ahead and extend this reasoning to all personal identities that don’t harm others, and I think that answers your question.
looks over at Rachel Dolezal
You sure about that? And that’s without jumping deep down the radqueer rabbit hole. Lots of identities in there that mainstream progressives will reject the idea that you can simply identify as (even if we ignore the weird pro-pedo stuff).
Hm, no. Marriage isn’t a legal construct. The government doesn’t have the right to own people’s relationships. Legal marriage is a legal fiction, true marriage is in a person’s heart.
Find me anyone mentioning the price of eggs back in November. That wasn’t a thing.
I do remember a lot of people very vocal about Palestine, and how important it was to not vote for the Democrats over it. And just how are the Palestinians enjoying their hard won Republican victory? I’m still not convinced that wasn’t a foreign psyop.
Hating black women? Sure some of that happened. Hating black men happened in 2008 and again in 2012. Remind me who won those elections?
Barack Obama ran on a campaign of hope and change. Kind of a charismatic JFK sort of persona, fairly young for a president, grade school age kids, projected energy and verve, inspiring speaker, etc. His campaign embraced the internet and social media in a way that hadn’t ever been done before which made a lot of young people feel seen. That simply isn’t there anymore. The official Democratic party policy is Nanci Pelosi’s stock portfolio and their official messaging is " 🏳️🌈 #blm #latinx" It was more important to run a woman candidate who wasn’t able to give a coherent answer to “What is a woman” because appearing to pander to the feminist and trans community was more important than winning the damn election. “At least we’re not our opponents” yeah that’s basically all you’ve been since the youngest eligible voters today were born; people can only hold their noses for so many decades.
Note that might have legal consequences: if they expressed that in a court session it might be considered perjury or contempt of court. In general, people don’t like being mislead, so using sentences that are easy to misinterpret when you could have used a more straightforward sentence will probably lead to trouble.
I doubt that Joe Exotic has been married at any time in 2025
It seems they were not married as of 1st November 2024
Marriage isn’t a legal construct. The government doesn’t have the right to own people’s relationships. They can say they do, it doesn’t make it true.
Traditionally marriage is about property rights, for the spouses and children. As such it was effectively a contract, and this is very much in what the government is for, since they will be the ones enforcing the contract if the parties disagree.
In the modern USA especially, a whole package of benefits is tied to being married, from health care to pensions and so on. Again, the government literally must be involved.
All of this is probably the main reason that people pushed so hard for gay marriage. Not having access to all of that was real discrimination.
I would love for marriage to move from being a special thing to being like any other contract, but it would take decades of work to begin to untangle it from the current model.
Then we should just get rid of it
The amount of religious Americans does keep falling. That is probably the biggest hurdle to getting rid of state involvement in marriage. But you’re looking at probably 50 or 100 years before enough people stop believing in Christianity for this to be possible.
Well, assuming any kind of democratic government. If some authoritarian takes over, then what the people want won’t matter. Although it’s looking more like a Christo-Fascist state than anything else…
Sorry guys, I agree with this take. The tricky part is the legal stuff tied to “single” or “married”, etc but we shouldn’t have distinguished based on that anyway.
Fine, but they can refer to each other as husbands if they like
Well, yeah, but I believe the implication is that if they were legally married then Exotic’s husband should be a US citizen and shouldn’t have been deported.
No? You can marry foreign nationals in the US I’d hope
Other way around. A US citizen marrying a foreign national grants the foreign national a path towards citizenship.
After looking further into it, however, it’s not an immediate thing. It seems to take 3 years before you can apply for citizenship, and of course you need to remain in the country legally for those 3 years.
A “path” towards citizenship is vague and doesn’t really matter in this new world. ICE has been rounding up noncitizens that are married to us citizens. This has been happening and will continue. This link isn’t even the story I first thought of when I was typing this reply.
https://www.newsweek.com/texas-immigrant-arrested-ice-deportation-mixed-status-family-2027517
But there’s also the assumption that one wants US citizenship which often means giving up any other citizenship you have
That’s bullshit. The government shouldn’t be deporting people for refusing to participate in their system of regulating love. Just let people live where they want.
One can comment on the reality of laws without believing they’re moral.
Exotic didn’t mention legal marriage. Why’s everyone making it about that?
I think that even if they were legally married, there are instances where they can still be deported. If the person went into or stayed in America “illegally”, they can be deported regardless of marriage status.
You know what? No. “Husband” “Wife” and “Spouse” have a legal meaning that has ramifications in tax and contract law, so I can only assume (especially from someone of his ethical caliber) that using such language is attempted fraud.
Nah fuck that. The idea that the state needs to validate people’s relationships is absurd.
Marriage has nothing to do with relationships or love. Never has and never will. Marriage is a contract, whether the terms of that contract is who has power of attorney by default or a mutual defense pact against the Ottoman Empire is up to the betrothed.
Let me provide an example of why this has to be in place: One cannot be compelled to testify against a spouse in court. That protection doesn’t extend to boyfriends, fucktoys or high-speed-low-passes. To prevent that system from being abused, you’re going to need to have a registry somewhere otherwise every court case is going to be “the prosecution can’t call any witnesses because everyone in the English speaking world is my spouse.”
Boyfriend, partner, dicksheath, cumdumpster, codpiece, anklegrabber, better half or significant other, these terms have no legal meaning and thus are perfectly free to use. “Husband” “Wife” and “Spouse” mean “we are parties of a certain standardized, legally binding contract.”
Ain’t nobody should have to snitch to the cops about nothing if they don’t want to. Shouldn’t require marriage at all.
Also, if marriage isn’t about love, then how come you can’t marry your sister? I’m not advocating for sister marriage, I’m just pointing out it definitely is about love, and that’s why marrying your sister is weird.
I think what they were saying is that “marriage” is a legally defined union between two people. A 12 year old child bride will be married - but I wouldn’t have thought love comes into that kind of horrific union.
There’s plenty of people who are not married but are in love with their partner and there are plenty of married couples where the love died long ago; if it even ever existed.
Well that’s wrong. Spouses should love each other. The law shouldn’t keep them together if they don’t. Abolish legal marriage.
Yeah - a loveless marriage is possibly the saddest place you could ever be. Don’t do it to yourself. (which, admittedly, you seem unlikely to.)
Whilst, yes, abolishing marriage might be a good idea there are certain legal and tax advantages to being married (in some jurisdictions). These would need to be worked out to apply equally to all couples (thrupples, polygamous communes, multi-wife faiths etc.) but wouldn’t be impossible.
I 100% agree with this.
People can do whatever they want with their relationships, but if they want a union recognized by the government and the advantages conferred by that, then yes the state can regulate that
Exotic didn’t say a single word about legal advantages.
No, but he used terminology that implied a legally sanctioned contract. That’s potentially misleading/wrong. It’s lying. But it doesn’t mean anything specific about the state of whatever relationship he may have
What do you mean by that? Because there are some cases I agree but a lot of the current restrictions are silly.
Regarding “restrictions”:
In at least some jurisdictions, the process of getting married involves “a marriage license”, and I think of a license as something that provides a privilege to and imposes an obligation upon someone, and potentially multiple privileges and/or obligations.
A license is “Freedom to deviate deliberately from normally applicable rules or practices (especially in behaviour or speech)”, so if there are any “restrictions” then they just apply by default, and people with a marriage license get to ignore some of them (in exchange for having some additional obligations/restrictions).
This reminds me of how “civil marriages” started happening in France: https://youtu.be/xD7MJcxQzKU?t=973 https://youtu.be/xD7MJcxQzKU?t=718
It’s an Instagram post.
Abolish legal marriage!
I can think of worse ideas.
lol okay word police.
I’m sure this keeps you up at night tossing and turning that someone used the word husband when it wasn’t technically correct under the strict definition of ThE lEgAl SyStEm
Okay so, other than “husband” and “woman” are there any other words the left don’t want to allow defining? How long is this list going to get?
“the left”, eh? You are aware that plenty of people on “the right” allege things in social media that they would never put in a court filing, yes?
Hello I’m the left’s official spokesperson and I think I can clear up this confusion.
A woman is someone who wants to be a woman.
A husband is someone who wants to be a husband and has consent from the person they’re a husband of.
Both of these words are identities, and letting people be who they want to be when it doesn’t affect other people is one of the values of the left. So you can go ahead and extend this reasoning to all personal identities that don’t harm others, and I think that answers your question.
No, a husband, wife or spouse is in a legal marriage with their partner, and in many jurisdictions carries specific legal rights involving one’s partner. That’s what makes them one of those terms and not a boyfriend, partner, fuckbuddy or whatever else. Unless you want to go the route that every noun or adjective describing a human is an identity, and thus no words for describing people can possibly have any meaning other than “person who applies this label to themselves.”
looks over at Rachel Dolezal
You sure about that? And that’s without jumping deep down the radqueer rabbit hole. Lots of identities in there that mainstream progressives will reject the idea that you can simply identify as (even if we ignore the weird pro-pedo stuff).
Hm, no. Marriage isn’t a legal construct. The government doesn’t have the right to own people’s relationships. Legal marriage is a legal fiction, true marriage is in a person’s heart.
And if you look to your left, ladies and gentlemen, you can see the hill America died on.
I mean, it’s you that’s insisting on a strict rule being followed, while the rest of us are letting people live their lives as they like.
It is you dying on the hill my friend. Alone, by the sounds of it.
That’s weird, I thought America died on the price of eggs, supporting genocide, and hating black women
Find me anyone mentioning the price of eggs back in November. That wasn’t a thing.
I do remember a lot of people very vocal about Palestine, and how important it was to not vote for the Democrats over it. And just how are the Palestinians enjoying their hard won Republican victory? I’m still not convinced that wasn’t a foreign psyop.
Hating black women? Sure some of that happened. Hating black men happened in 2008 and again in 2012. Remind me who won those elections?
Barack Obama ran on a campaign of hope and change. Kind of a charismatic JFK sort of persona, fairly young for a president, grade school age kids, projected energy and verve, inspiring speaker, etc. His campaign embraced the internet and social media in a way that hadn’t ever been done before which made a lot of young people feel seen. That simply isn’t there anymore. The official Democratic party policy is Nanci Pelosi’s stock portfolio and their official messaging is " 🏳️🌈 #blm #latinx" It was more important to run a woman candidate who wasn’t able to give a coherent answer to “What is a woman” because appearing to pander to the feminist and trans community was more important than winning the damn election. “At least we’re not our opponents” yeah that’s basically all you’ve been since the youngest eligible voters today were born; people can only hold their noses for so many decades.
“The left”
I’m just some dude.
Tbf, some of us agree with that but about the marriage institution being upheld by a polygamous species in denial. 😅
Note that might have legal consequences: if they expressed that in a court session it might be considered perjury or contempt of court. In general, people don’t like being mislead, so using sentences that are easy to misinterpret when you could have used a more straightforward sentence will probably lead to trouble.
Some consequences of “represent[ing] to others that the parties are married” can be considered quite negative: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/no-home-or-kids-together-but-couple-still-spouses-appeal-court-rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage_in_the_United_States
Perhaps they weren’t legally married but had some kinda tiger ceremony followed by a sweaty handshake…