I'm not saying "the government should care about who gets my house, and marriage relates to that decision, and therefore marriage should be a government issue."
I'm saying "right now, today, in the real world, the government does care about who gets my house, and marriage relates to that decision, and therefore marriage is, right now, a government issue."
As I said initially:
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.
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