The only good reason people get married is if they're religious. They believe it's "dirty" to have sex before marriage but somehow by getting married it's not "dirty" anymore, it doesn't make sense. But seriously, why do gay people care about getting married? Marriage doesn't really do anything good, it is not worth the amount it costs. Whenever I ask someone why they got married they will say "the commitment" but you can do this without marriage. That's like saying if they're not married it's OK for them to cheat on each other but when they are married they shouldn't cheat on each other. If you love someone you will commit to them, the same way if you love your job you will want to go to work. If you don't love them then leave them, you will only live a sad life with someone you don't love. Marriage is bad, it is traditional but meaningless. Not being married is better than being married because when you're not married you can easily walk out and it saves you the trouble of paying for a divorce, you can just be honest with them how you feel and still have the same amount of money afterwards. If you got bored of the relationship then you would be able to be honest with each other rather than lying and being scared what will happen after the break up. Basically marriage is imprisonment, if you don't love someone and stay married you will feel emotionally alone but if you leave the marriage you are going to have to pay a lot of money which can be dangerous, people need financial stability. Also what I've noticed from married people is that they feel superior because they're married, they feel as if they've got somewhere in life but in reality they haven't. They feel because they are married their relationship is so much better than an unmarried couple, being married or not is irrelevant, what matter is how much you love each other. Society has a tendency to show off where they can, everyone has to have nice cars to feel superior or to just fit in, they feel like they need to get married to fit in or feel superior to an unmarried couple. Do you even see how much money religion is taking in from marrying people? They pay no taxes also, I can see what the intention of religion is and I can't believe people actually defend and support religion. The chances are that people will either break up or get bored with their marriage. To think that staying married for the rest of your life will be enjoyable is overly optimistic, I think most relationships don't last until death, I'm not being pessimistic but from what I see I think this is realistic.
Eh, if not religion (atheists get married too m8) then taxes, and children....it's wierd to have kids but not be married. #ignoramusshortanswer
Financial and social security. Marriage allows for legal recognition and makes joint ownership easier. Have you heard how many times unmarried couples (gay or not) have problems? Inheritance law is one problem. When one partner dies, the family of the deceased, no matter how estranged, has priority in taking their inheritance away from the partner if there's no marriage. Taxes are more beneficial to married couples. Marriage provides recognition of a union with the state, which is really helpful for statistics/bills/taxes/legal issues etc. Marriage isn't just a cozy social institution; it's a financial and legal necessity for a lot of people.
Marriage may be heavily rooted in religious institutions, but many modern nations recognize unioned couples and with that quite a litany of additional rights and benefits that should not be denied because of what the couple happen to consist of. For example, there have been incidents in which a partner could not visit their seriously injured and in some cases dying partner in the hospital because they were not 'married'. It isn't solely about the pomp and circumstance and tradition, but the legal recognition of partnership. As many have pointed out, there are financial benefits and regulations that vary significantly if a couple is recognized as such. I myself am in the military and if I were to want to get 'married', that would entitle me and my partner quite a bit. They could be covered under my medical plan, I would be authorized additional housing allowances, could earn separation pay, and the government would pay to move them to my base among other things. Personally, I don't think 'gay marriage' should be legal in the sense that I frankly don't give a damn if a religious organization wants to deny access to same-sex (or what have you) couples and don't think any government should either. What I do favor instead is 'civil union', that is to say the same recognition from the government as a 'married' couple should be afforded to any couple that wishes to enter into that arrangement.
I kind of think that religion is just another method the elite use to get their money from us. Either you pay up with marriage or pay more tax. The elite want your money and will use various methods to get money from you.
I know a lot of people who got married at a court house. They hardly spent any money at all. At the end of the day, all a marriage is is a legal contract.
When people talk about divorces being expensive, that all depends on how mutual the divorce is. The issue comes in since the union is a legal partnering of two people, their assets are part of that. Now if they both sit down and mutually agree to divorce and have no issues re-individualizing the assets, it's quick and fiscally painless. It becomes expensive only when one party argues their right to something like say a house, then it can become a legal battle incurring lawyer fees and so on. Even if the divorce is on good 'terms', it can be difficult to divide up a couple's shared assets.
Married people have rights in the hospital that partners don't have. Married people can not be compelled to testify against each other in court.
I imagine it depends on where they live and the lawyer. And contrary to popular myths, not every married couple gets divorced. Edit: And what Heun said. I forgot to factor in how couples split their assets and whether they fight over things. You can choose not to get married, and if that makes you happy then that's great. But there are a lot of reasons gay and lesbian people want to get married. In the U.S., married couples have over a thousand rights denied to non-married couples in most of the country. While same-sex couples can be recognized through civil unions or domestic partnerships, it is not the same as being married. Saying, "Why get married when you get be in a civil union?" puts a label on those couples that says their relationship is less legitimate and less valuable than a heterosexual married couple’s relationship.
I want to marry my partner because of benefits. Benefits that straight people get that I can't because of who I love. I want to be seen as equal and fair, not a second class citizen. Yes, there are more important things that we should focus on like protection laws and medical aid for trans* folk, but I'd like to know at some point if I want to get married, I'll be granted the same rights as everyone else.
In my ideal world, marriage would not exist as an institution privileged by the State, and as a result, people would not be punished for not being married. This works differently by jurisdiction, but basically, in the US, people are discriminated against based on marital status with respect to many areas of life, such as tax benefits, inheritance benefits, survivorship benefits, hospital visitation rights, health and life insurance beneficiary status, and immigration eligibility just to name a few. In the real world, there is only one legal status for which these benefits automatically accrue (as opposed to having to be set up manually by the average person, who may not know what benefits the law affords her), That legal status is "married." I am not silly enough to think that my ideal world will be reconciled with the real world in any reasonable amount of time. While marriage is a limiting institution, and has been historically problematic (that is, having had a sexist, racist, and colonial history), I think it's callous for me to say that because I personally don't care about it, that I shouldn't fight for other queer folks to have it. Morally speaking, it would reflect profoundly poorly on me as a human being if I didn't care about marriage, and as a result of my not caring, maybe some binational couple gets split up in the United States because one of the spouses is not recognized as legally married and therefore not able to enjoy the immigration benefits necessary to remain in the country legally. Maybe somebody dies and her wife of many years is left penniless. It's sort of like I think capitalism and the State are both awful institutions, but absent being able to tear both of those structures down right now, I'm rather have capitalism work in the least terrible way possible and the State work in the least coercive way possible (and that includes constraining corporate power so that the State doesn't just outsource its coercive power to corporations, leaving the same overall level of coercion by institutions over individuals).
Im not religious at all. Im actually against religion, but I see marriage as something that binds you together even more with the person you love. It doesn't matter what your sexuality is. Gay people (like myself although im not married) get married for the same reasons heterosexual people get married, and vice versa.
I don't know about the UK, but there are over 1000 rights granted to marry couples. It's quite difficult to impossible for gay couples to adopt in some states unless married, for one thing.
