Yes, but if the married couple across the street are getting tax and other advantages simply for being married that you and your unmarried partner are not getting, then that is an injustice. Either no one should get such advantages or any pair of people regardless of gender or race should be able to get them. Either get rid of state marriage or let anyone get married.
No joke, once you start structuring your life as a business, especially as formal corporations, the amount of financial, legal, and professional advantages, opportunities, and protection that appear are incredible. For example, did you know that …
… as an S corp, you can “pass through” the profit and loss of your business, such that your personal gross income excludes business expenses?
… the employer match on a 401k account is considered a business expense?
… the actual annual cap on employer contributions to various retirement vehicles are in fact much, much higher than employers are typically willing to offer you as a benefit?
… the terms of commercial factoring, mortgages and loans are often far more agreeable than consumer equivalents?
… many of the places where you shop offer discounts to business accounts (and not just for volume, simply because you’re a business)?
… it’s considered normal/SOP to request edits to many types of agreements individuals are expected to simply accept without question, including leases offered by landlords?
This is just a sample. Most endeavors and many functional aspects of personal life are by design simpler, safer, more scalable, and more profitable if planned and executed as a business rather than an individual in the late great United States of America.
I agree. I don’t think people should be expected to do all this to be treated like they matter in a society. I do it because I don’t want to go back to living in my car, but the process offers me daily reminders of how our system is thoroughly rigged in favor of commercial interests and against the human who wishes to live as a human.
There are a shit ton of laws built around the idea of marriage. Your spouse has rights to make medical decisions, inhabit and inherit property, share custody of children and property, sign certain documents, and stuff you probably never think about. Marriage equality is not an exercise in vanity, it really makes a difference when the government recognizes your special relationship and commitment. It also makes divorce so important, because the ability to sever that relationship is the only way to untangle all of those rights and responsibilities to each other.
It would be better to have a different concept of contractual family, one that permits for more granularity and possibilities. But that ain’t what we got. Requiring demonstrations of fault to grant a divorce is just another way for shitty people to abuse other people. Prior to no-fault divorce, it wasn’t uncommon for judges to say things like “that’s not really spousal abuse” or “that’s not really rape” and then deny the divorce.
Yup, this was one of the central debates with gay marriage vs. civil unions, so many LGBT+ couples were absolutely screwed pre-Obergefell by one of the partners getting sick or dying, and the surviving partner either having no say in medical decisions or getting screwed out of inheritance because the sick/dead partner’s family was anti-gay and froze the surviving partner out of everything.
Marriage is just made up. People can partner off with no need for state intervention.
Yes, but if the married couple across the street are getting tax and other advantages simply for being married that you and your unmarried partner are not getting, then that is an injustice. Either no one should get such advantages or any pair of people regardless of gender or race should be able to get them. Either get rid of state marriage or let anyone get married.
Easy: Just form a corporation.
“We got married” becomes “We incorporated a Delaware LLC that manages our assets through a Swiss Trust”
Capitalists when an average Joe does it: wait, not like that
They seem to have more rights than real people.
No joke, once you start structuring your life as a business, especially as formal corporations, the amount of financial, legal, and professional advantages, opportunities, and protection that appear are incredible. For example, did you know that …
This is just a sample. Most endeavors and many functional aspects of personal life are by design simpler, safer, more scalable, and more profitable if planned and executed as a business rather than an individual in the late great United States of America.
I hate living like that though. I just want to be a human not a corporate entity.
I agree. I don’t think people should be expected to do all this to be treated like they matter in a society. I do it because I don’t want to go back to living in my car, but the process offers me daily reminders of how our system is thoroughly rigged in favor of commercial interests and against the human who wishes to live as a human.
Seem?
Do.
I think the people making the rules have other things in mind. Not fairness.
End state marriage tax breaks and please do religious exceptions next.
100%
This is a straw man.
There are a shit ton of laws built around the idea of marriage. Your spouse has rights to make medical decisions, inhabit and inherit property, share custody of children and property, sign certain documents, and stuff you probably never think about. Marriage equality is not an exercise in vanity, it really makes a difference when the government recognizes your special relationship and commitment. It also makes divorce so important, because the ability to sever that relationship is the only way to untangle all of those rights and responsibilities to each other.
It would be better to have a different concept of contractual family, one that permits for more granularity and possibilities. But that ain’t what we got. Requiring demonstrations of fault to grant a divorce is just another way for shitty people to abuse other people. Prior to no-fault divorce, it wasn’t uncommon for judges to say things like “that’s not really spousal abuse” or “that’s not really rape” and then deny the divorce.
Yup, this was one of the central debates with gay marriage vs. civil unions, so many LGBT+ couples were absolutely screwed pre-Obergefell by one of the partners getting sick or dying, and the surviving partner either having no say in medical decisions or getting screwed out of inheritance because the sick/dead partner’s family was anti-gay and froze the surviving partner out of everything.
Don’t worry, they’ll reduce women back to property, so being unmarried, unowned property will be VERY dangerous for the property.