Why have them register at all? Because there are legal benefits associated with what is currently called "marriage". There are also other laws that are associated with it, such as the ones involving taxes for couples.

Of course, that then leads to, as I said, the requirement of certain conditions and limitations in order to prevent a relationship of convenience... or at least, to provide downsides to the choice, to ensure that people don't do it just for those benefits.

Do you think the tax benefits are just? What valid reason is there for giving a tax break to married couples, versus unmarried?

Conservatives often argue that the tax benefits are good because they promote the institution of marriage... but they don't. How many couples get or stay married because of the tax benefits? And, if that number is substantial, is that really keeping in with the traditional view of marriage? For a tax break. Always seemed like an odd argument.

However, based on your quick defence of liberals in the other thread, I'd wager that you probably don't buy the Conservative arguments for tax breaks, anyway. Under your proposal, you're already throwing out many of the traditional customs of marriage, why not throw out these tax breaks/laws, too?

same here. well i should say i am for small government and all ways have been. No one around me was ever very political. All the teachers I had really push the dems agenda or views.  i dont know where i got my views but i am definatly for small government and I am pretty sure I always will be. I dont see my views changing anytime soon.

Why should couples get the break? Because oftentimes, one member of the couple goes and works, while the other one tends to the home, does the various chores, etc. Keep in mind that I said nothing about love when I advocated registered relationships. I didn't even say anything about registered relationships between family members. It wasn't a mistake - I don't see why sexual/romantic love should be relevant to registering your relationship.

Of course, as I said, it can't be all positives, as it pretty much is right now. There have to be negatives to the arrangement. But those are all details to be worked out.

And the legal benefits aren't like the tax benefits - I'm talking about things like what happens if one of them is in hospital, for instance. Also wills, family structure (for adoption of the partner's kids, for instance), etc. Essentially, it's a way to formalise, as far as the government is concerned, the fact that they are family, with all of the legal associations involved.

Short version

13 - Centrist
15 - Socialist
17 - Left leaning Centrist
22 - Libertarian Socialist (?!?!)

Why should couples get the break? Because oftentimes, one member of the couple goes and works, while the other one tends to the home, does the various chores, etc. 

Well, this is true for both married and unmarried couples. What about single people? They often have to work and look after the house. The situation becomes even messier when you include children. Should a single mother really work and pay a tax to help subsidize the tax break for a married couple? I don't think so.

If there is to be any tax break at all, it should be tied to number of children, not marriage.

 I don't see why sexual/romantic love should be relevant to registering your relationship.

Well, I didn't mention those things, either. If somebody wishes to enter into a personal contract with another, with the absence of love/children/romance/whatever, then they're perfectly free to. Though, to argue that this would be a common case would be to deny human nature. In the vast, vast majority of cases, people would choose to partner up with an individual in which they are in love. It's one of the few areas where a person would oblige to give up some of their liberties.

Why do I mention giving up liberties? Becuase that's what you're essentially doing by entering a binding relationship - whether through my system of personal contracts, your system of universal civil unions, or the current state system of state/church mixed marriage. To offer economic incentives above what the natural order automatically offers (division of labour, lower cost per person, etc.) could be argued as to be immoral.

You have to ask yourself - in the absence of all Government intervention, in which cases would people form a committed relationship? And the answer to that, 9.9 times out of 10, will be when there is emotional ties between them - whether you call it love, or whatever. To intervene and to change the cost/balance relationship in favour of something that would be different from the natural case derived from human yearning would be, in my mind, immoral.

I'm talking about things like what happens if one of them is in hospital, for instance. Also wills, family structure (for adoption of the partner's kids, for instance), etc.

None of this requires a third party in the state, and can be easily sorted out by the people involved when entering a relationship. If me and my partner decide we want X to happen if one of us dies, what right is it of the state to tell us that Y should happen?

I'm sensing there is no sarcasm in this. No evolution?! No climate warming either?!

On the question of taxes, my actual view is that a "family unit" should be treated as more than a single person, but not as a sum of the people. So, for instance, perhaps two people in a registered relationship would be treated as 1.5 people, rather than as one person or two people. Perhaps a family of one parent and three children would be treated as 1.9 people (1 + 3 * 0.3).

Essentially, registered relationship becomes akin to adoption in this regard. The finer details need to be figured out, though - I'm just using the 0.5 and 0.3 values as arbitrary choices that seem reasonable. There might also be modifications of these numbers as the total family income increases.

Regarding the relevance of love, my point was that it's not a necessity. Morality isn't relevant, here, because the government shouldn't be regulating morality, only providing protections (it's not that theft or murder, for instance, is "immoral", it's that it negatively impacts somebody else). A registered relationship should not be predicated on love or some other moral conception, but on functionality.

I should clarify that, when I mentioned wills, it's more about contesting of wills, how to handle things not explicitly listed in the will, and things like that. Also, what happens if someone doesn't have a will, or they have a will that is out of date? What happens is that family become responsible for handling it. And a registered relationship would officially mark the other person as part of that family.

The hospital case is much more complicated - what happens if you're in hospital, in a coma? You can't tell the hospital people that your unregistered partner is part of your family, and the hospital has no reason to believe them, either. Registering the relationship officially makes them family, and thus the hospital merely needs to check that.

I'm confused. We are talking about our political views and how they have changed over time. Nothing about science in here right now.

According to Facebook, I'm a member of the Communist Party of Canada! In reality however:

Republican-> old school democrat -> Libertarian -> Anarcho-Capitalist

But like the console war, I dislike one party greatly >_>. Well, not the party, just the politicians who seem to get the most press, and their policies