06-20-2003, 05:40 AM
Marriage is different from every other contract: marriage is a union whose purpose is to create and nurture new life, not to confer ownership of property or grant tax benefits. Two people could easily form a corporation and enjoy many joint benefits in tax exemption, property ownership, and even group rates on health insurance (polygamists take note). Having lost sight of the purpose of marriage it is then easy to assume that a contract for property rights or health care benefits is what is being negotiated; it isn't, these are ancillary issues. People can enter into other types of associations and contracts with their own self-interest as the paramount concern, but marriage is different in that it involves more than the concerns of those two people who originally negotiated the contract as it will ultimately engage non-consentual participants, viz. childern (aside from other procreatory methods, you wouldn't deny adoption to a married couple based soley upon their sexual orientation, would you?). Self-interest must yield to altruism for marriage to function and solipsists make poor parents.