Marriage - separation of church and state

The state (or society in general) in our liberal tradition has an interest in maintaining a stable population and in child rearing. This requires maintenance of the family as a basic unit. (Our society does not favor child rearing by the community). These days having children is increasingly a planned event and and least in the socioeconomic sense is a sacrifice by the child rearers that has benefit for other members of the community. It is appropriate therefore for the state to compensate for this sacrifice by offering tax and other economic advantages such as shared medical insurance and social security benefits. Such benefits are not appropriate for other relationships between adults which do not involve child rearing (ex, a gay couple or a childless married couple). Both individuals in such a relationship are capable of supporting themselves and giving special consideration in this case is not only unnecessary but is a loss to others who must bear the cost. This consideration by the state should not be called "marriage" which has a traditional and religious meaning.

In fact in my opinion the state should take a more positive role to enforce appropriate child rearing in the case of those who take on a family unit relationship either through procreation or adoption. This would be far preferable to the present day tendency for the state to substitute for the family.

Matters such as inheritance and power of attorney can and should be handled by other legal methods than state designation of "marriage" which implies a laundry list of legal arrangements that could be handled separately by a simple arrangement such as with the "living will".

"Marriage" should be an individual, private matter, either sanctioned by religion according to individual moral beliefs or by a simple declaration by the persons involved. Perhaps this would help to end the confusion over what to call the increasing number of cohabiting couples.

Comment on NEJM Article on Constitutionality of ACA

Fortunately in the United States we remain a society of laws rather than of men. The power of the federal government over the states and individual citizens is limited by our written law even if the men in the temporary majority feel that they have a wonderful idea that will be good for all. The Supreme Court, for better or for worse, is the mechanism in our written law for deciding where those limitations lie. The members of the Supreme Court are individuals of varying temperment, unelected but selected by a political process. This is our system.
The Obama administration and the Democrat party could have carried out their idea by levying a tax and purchasing "insurance" for those who did not have it. That clearly would have been constitutional and from the economic standpoint would have given the same result as the ACA. I believe this approach would have been their preference but was not considered politically feasable. The constitutionality question was a calculated risk which they took as the best available option politically.

On the payment issue: medical insurance is not insurance - it is a pre-payment scheme. It is the worst of all ways to pay for medical care.