Is marriage the right of each and every citizen?

[mrstickball]

sapphi_snake said:

mrstickball said:
Marriage is a construct of the church and should be treated as such.

It should have no bearing on what the government does. The government should recognize all co-habitation agreements between two consenting adults. Because of this, the government should only act as needed as an arbiter between two people's compact in case of annulment (e.g. divorce). Outside of that, the government should not be involved one iota. Church should be free to denounce homosexual marriage as it desires (since the church is the one to fashion the idea of marriage in the first place), but such statements should have no bearing on its legalities.

Except, this is false, and I doubt you'd find any sort of argument to support this. First of all, which 'church'? Marriage is present in all cultures. Second of all, you are aware that people would get married before Christianity even existed, right? Marriage actually has nothing to do with religion in most places, as it's more of a cultural/legal practice.

Actually, you would find an argument to support this. Church as in the Christian church, or religious organizations in general.

I'd suggest reading up on the contemporary foundation of marriage at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage#History_of_marriage_by_culture

You can find a significant amount of information in regards to the church establishing and codifing the requirements of marriage millennia ago, and in law for most European countries for centuries. You can cite many exmaples of marriage existing before Christianity, but again, it was never codified.

Forms of marriage are present in all cultures, but none codified it except for the church. Thus why I argue they are the torch bearer for the definition of marriage. But as such, history shows us that all cultures have had common-law marriages, which should be the basis for the state (civil unions).