{"id":41481,"date":"2014-02-04T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T18:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=41481"},"modified":"2014-02-03T09:52:59","modified_gmt":"2014-02-03T15:52:59","slug":"match-made-in-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=41481","title":{"rendered":"Match Made In Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"

A move has begun in Oklahoma to get the state out of the marriage business<\/a>. \u00a0While the\u00a0news story on the subject<\/a>\u00a0phrases it as “prohibiting marriage”, what the proposal would really do is end the practice of issuing government marriage licenses, and leave the institution of marriage – or whatever – to the individual.<\/p>\n

If you wanted to marry in a church – provided the church recognizes your form of union – then mazel tov<\/em>. \u00a0 And if they don’t – or you’re just not that religious, anyway – then you would just write up a contract, and live by it.<\/p>\n

Of course, this proposal will likely rile up both extremes; the extreme left has come to regard redefining marriage (in the eyes of the state, anyway)\u00a0as its big victory; this would be removing the issue from the table, which would be a slap in the left’s face akin to turning the Stonewall Bar into a condo development.<\/p>\n

Social conservatives – or at least the short-sighted ones – will howl like stuck cats, too; many of them see government as a vehicle for building society in their image, no less than the far left does. \u00a0But it is <\/em>short-sighted; by getting marriage out of the public sphere, they can save the traditional version of it now that “let’s let government define our social mores” thing is backfiring badly.<\/p>\n

By getting the state out of marriage, everybody wins; traditional marriage can sprout where it’s bloomed; “alternative” ideals of the institution can grow between whomever wants them.<\/p>\n

Of course, the extreme left isn’t looking for a win-win. \u00a0 And we’ll have to see about the social right.<\/p>\n

But for now? \u00a0The idea is a brilliant one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A move has begun in Oklahoma to get the state out of the marriage business. \u00a0While the\u00a0news story on the subject\u00a0phrases it as “prohibiting marriage”, what the proposal would really do is end the practice of issuing government marriage licenses, and leave the institution of marriage – or whatever – to the individual. If you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","category-men-and-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41481"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41567,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41481\/revisions\/41567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}