Marriage limitations

[cynatnite]

So, the government wants to tell people who they can't marry if they are the same sex. What's to stop them from taking it further? If a person has been convicted of a violent crime/crimes against the opposite sex maybe they shouldn't get married? Maybe if they've married two, three, four or more times, they shouldn't be allowed to get married? What if someone has bad credit? Should they be allowed to marry and ruin the other person's credit?

This has been on my mind for the last few days. The fundies want to redefine marriage by way of banning, it seems to me they may want to take it even further if they had their way. Maybe even telling people they have to get married. My oldest daughter has been living with her boyfriend for three years and they have two children together. My father-in-law has mentioned on more than one occasion that they should get married. He's said it to her and to my husband. In my mind he's out of line and it's not his place to say anything. He's a fundie and I'm to the point of telling him to mind his own business.

What's to stop them to either ban certain people from getting married or even forcing some into it?

[HockeyMom]

1. Fertility tests?

My niece and her husband decided before they married they didn't want children and fixed it so they wouldn't. Should they be denied marriage licenses because the "purpose of marriage is procreation"?

Bush with his Promote Marriage Act is already telling unmarried mothers to marry the fathers of their children. What if they don't want to? Government sanctioned shotgun weddings?

[Son of California]

2. The Catholic Church

used marriage for hundreds of years as a tool for consolidating power, avoiding reform and keeping alive the idea of differences between class.

considering that along with the fact that half of all marriages in the US end in divorce, I consider the institution a joke and support gay marriage only in so far as it is needed to attain a true equality of opportunity.