If I die intestate, is who inherits my house a government issue?
If my husband wants to visit me in the hospital after my stroke, and the hospital staff refuse to allow it, is that a government issue?
Certainly, my government is currently involved in passing laws about such things. And whether I'm married or not affects how those rules apply to me. That seems to indicate that right now, marriage in my country is a government issue.
Perhaps if the government was not involved in any issues like that, to which the social status of my husband and me were relevant, I would agree with you that our status was a purely social issue and not a government one. That might even be an improvement over the current situation, I'm not sure.
But it's not the situation I'm in.
If I die intestate, is who inherits my house a government issue?
The obvious thing would be for people to put it on their will, but I'm not sure how often people actually update them. I imagine it would be something people would do when they get married, along with contracts for sharing property and such. I'm not sure exactly how feasible that is.
If my husband wants to visit me in the hospital after my stroke, and the hospital staff refuse to allow it, is that a government issue?
Are there laws about that? I'd expect the choice of who can enter would ...
A thought occurred to me today as I skimmed an article in a rationality forum where the subject of gay marriage cropped up; seeing as the issue has been hotly contested in various public fora and especially the courts, what about poly? After all, many if not all the arguments for gay marriage apply to poly marriage as well.
Questions for LWers who are currently in a such a relationship, or have an opinion to share:
Do polies want to marry each other or do such relationships not lend themselves to permanence above a threshold of partners? Should polies campaign for the right for a civil union anyway? what are the up and down sides of this? etc