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    4 months ago

    In fairness, marriage does provide a relatively consistent and arguably fair baseline for unwinding certain large life decisions and transactions (home purchase, kids, etc) that would otherwise be exceptionally problematic for the state to divide up between parties at scale.

    Eliminating gender and related elements from marriage seems a more logical solution to me, as the legal institution serves a valid purpose.

    Unfortunately, given “full faith and credit,” and delegation of powers to states, I don’t see an effective way to wipe away the unnecessarily specific definitions of marriage in each state - that puts us back to square one.

    One can and may substitute a large stack of paperwork for many of the automatic legal benefits and protections of marriage. It’s hardly a perfect 1:1 replacement, and doesn’t keep up with legal changes automatically, as court rulings about applicability of statutes broadly tend to.