The REAL Threat to the Institution of Marriage
Social conservatives are constantly carping about the threat that gay marriage allegedly poses to the institution of marriage. In response, proponents of gay marriage reflexively bring up the (rather tired) example of Britney Spears, and her joke of a marriage to Jason Alexander.* The debate gets pretty old, pretty fast.
Here's what we want to know:
What about those Columbia graduate students? Why isn't anyone talking about the threat that THEY pose to marriage?
* Jason Allen Alexander, Britney's pretty cute childhood friend -- not that other Jason Alexander. And now that K-Fed is history, might Jason and Britney get back together?
Columbia Grad Student Marries Friend to Get Bigger Financial Aid Package [TaxProf Blog]
Feigned Marriage Helps to Prove Financial Independence [Columbia Spectator]
How a Marriage of Convenience Saved $11,000 in Student Aid [News Blog/Chronicle of Higher Education]
(2) Comments
I agree - the Columbia student's portayal of marriage is just as detrimental to pro-family causes as allowing gay marriage. However, as it stands both gay marriage and shacking up for IRS or other financial advantages are illegal activities which are prohibited by law as they should be - In order to protect the sanctity of marriage. The difference between the situation is that gay marriage proponents want to destroy the sanctity of marriage by making it a legally recognizable relationship.
I think this perhaps points more to the absurdity of having government in the marriage business at all. A friend of mine once proposed--only half-jokingly--a similar scheme to take advantage of her status as a university employee. We agreed that there'd have to be consumation, heh, but ultimately, what business is it of the government to check to make sure I'm boffing my notional "spouse"--or vaguer still, that I 'love' her--rather than just shacking up for some benefit that spouses can share? Why shouldn't government stick to 'civil unions,' sex optional, and leave marriage, and its sanctity, to the institutions better suited to address it--churches?
I recognize that there's potential for abuse here, but clearly, the same potential for abuse is in the existing scheme. At least under a civil union regime there would be honesty and perhaps the opportunity to legislatively define such a status with an eye to the purposes people will put it to.