It rather shocks me that I find myself approving of what this guy has to say:

• Pro-family group quits gay marriage fight (canada.com)

Briefly:

The head of a national pro-family organization says it’s time to ditch the fight against gay marriage and push instead for tax breaks and other incentives to make marriage and child rearing more attractive options.

Dave Quist, executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, said Thursday he has become less concerned about same-sex marriage since census figures released earlier this month demonstrated how rare gay marriage is.

[...]

He said a first priority should be to change the tax rules so only married couples – not those living common law – are allowed to split their incomes, thereby reducing their tax hit.

So… gay marriage isn’t the horrifying threat to uptight heterosexuality that it has been portrayed to be for decades by, well, people like Mr. Quist?  What a shocking surprise!  I agree, Mr. Quist: you should ditch your odious preoccupation with other people’s private lives and recognize that what those consenting adults do in private is no threat to your, uh, “lifestyle”.

Now, about this tax thing.  I’m not terribly happy about income taxes in general — but if we’re going to have income taxes, I’d rather they be spread simply and uniformly across the population rather than carefully tailored to fit the political prejudices of the moment (and, of course, every political prejudice of past moments that haven’t become sufficiently odious to attract an official redaction).  Among other things, I’m rather less than impressed with tax breaks for married and common-law couples.  Therefore, when Mr. Quist advocates dropping split-income tax provisions for common-law couples, I see it as a good start.

Then we have this bit:

The rising tide of common-law unions throughout North America, but particularly in Canada, was a major topic of discussion Thursday at a one-day conference sponsored by Quist’s organization. American academic Jennifer Roback Morse, who has written extensively about the merits of marriage over cohabitation, said Canadian legislators should waste no time in coming up with tax breaks to make marriage more attractive.

“We should not encourage cohabitation by treating it as if it were marriage,” she told about 60 people, most from faith-based and social service organizations.

Sixty people.  My goodness — your conferences sure are special.  The last time I gave a conference talk, I had the honour of addressing over two hundred people — and that was a rather specialized group of academics, not those who purport to represent a “moral” majority of modern society.

But enough about me — let’s talk about you, Ms. Morse.  You claim that “Canadian legislators should waste no time in coming up with tax breaks to make marriage more attractive”, eh?  Go fuck yourself and the horse you rode in.  Canadian legislators have no fucking business getting involved in marriage — or anything else pertaining to the private lives of the citizens whom they represent.  You have some fucking nerve, waltzing into a country not your own and daring to tell its politicians how they should spend my taxes!

Here’s a daring thought: let’s completely — heheheh — divorce government from the business of marriage altogether.  No tax breaks for couples, no marriage licenses, no common-law benefits, no messy divorce hearings… no problem.  Can anyone explain to me why government ought to be involved in the relationships of its citizens to begin with?