Illogical

Apparently the trend in marriage ceremonies these days is to hedge your bets, vowing to stay together "as long as we both shall love" or "for as long as our marriage shall serve the greatest good" or "until our time together is over."

Question: If you don't think you're going to be together forever, why would you put yourself through a ceremony? Really, the "benefit" other than shared insurance is that a very, very expensive court proceeding is required before you can decide who gets to keep the car. You already know you're going to break up eventually. Wouldn't it be easier just to live together?

Dappled Thoughts raises another point:

Why is this sort of thing not provoking all sorts of outrage, petitions to Congress, proposed Constitutional amendments, and so forth? Why aren't all the marriage defenders picketing city hall on this? Why should my tax dollars be spent on government recognition of these kinds of unions, which I'm morally opposed to and aren't really marriages at all? If one's going to be consistent on the civil marriage question, it seems to me that one should oppose (or support, or ignore) legal recognition of these sorts of heterosexual unions with the same vehemence (or lack thereof) as one opposes (or supports, or ignores) legal recognition of homosexual unions. The same thing goes for the strings of divorces and remarriages, or for unions that deliberately exclude children, or for "open" marriages where both parties are free to be as unfaithful as they please. It doesn't make sense to rail about two men getting married up in Massachusetts, while winking at these civilly-approved parodies for the simple fact that they are contracted by people of opposite sexes. Give them both a pass, condemn them both, or get the government out of the approval business altogether. But at least be consistent.

I've always wondered why gay sex is worse than unmarried hetero sex on many people's sin-radar. It seems the same to me, but I don't see entire busloads of churches picketing movies involving unmarried sex. Just wondering.