Hacker News Reader

Social engineering via tax breaks are a dumb idea, but deleting the concept of marriage from law entirely is impractical and probably undesirable.

The only rights of marriage that cannot be conferred by contract are the parts that fall into the "social engineering via tax breaks" (or redistribution) category.

View on HN

Immigration rights are not tax breaks, and they are a hugely valuable benefit of marriage. Marriage gets you a green card within two years; attempting to do the same as, say, a 25 year old with a bachelor's degree could take upwards of 7 years. (Marriage is also much cheaper)

There's other rights, like hospital visitation, legal indemnification, etc. that also don't fall into that category.

You get hospital visitation with a medical proxy contract.

You are correct about immigration and legal indemnification, though I question the social utility of both those benefits.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com