> The state should mandate that a number of rights automatically rest in
> a specific kind of individual for administrative reasons:
Well, I'm a big believer in organ donation, but until I legally wed someone who sees things my way, it ain't gonna happen. And there are millions more like me. This is part and parcel of the system you defend, in which the government mandates who holds these powers on our behalves. To put it bluntly, your "administrative reasons" inflict an awful lot of unnecessary deaths.
> For example, a landlord might know damn well
> that he can't discriminate based on marital status, but what if a
> prospective tenant has a "comprehensive contract" with another person?
Poor example: like most anti-discrimination laws, those in housing only penalize people stupid enough to *say* why they discriminate.
> Or, in a situation where a doctor needs to ask permission to, say,
> harvest organs, who does s/he need to consult in the next 20 minutes?
If I wish to designate say, my personal physician to do so, rather than a family member with an emotional attachment likely to obscure judgments in a crisis, who are you, or the public, to say that I cannot?
> Is every hospital going to need a lawyer in the emergency room to
> analyze "comprehensive contracts"?
I can read a Blumberg lease and figure out its meaning instantly. Once I've read it, I rarely need to refresh my memory with another copy of the same version, even if the names are different. Why would marital contracts be any different? (And do you imagine that many hospitals, in the US at least, lack legal departments?)
> On a related note, there are
> innumerable statutes and regulations that refer to, or implicate, the
> rights of spouses. Figuring out how these intersect with different
> "comprehensive contracts" would be a long-lasting legal and
> bureaucratic nightmare.
...
> But just for the sake of efficient
> administration, there ought to be a single, state-recognized status:
> you can call it whatever you want.
Go sit in your local family court for a few days, then come back and tell us you've observed something other than "a long-lasting legal and bureaucratic nightmare." You seem to have the impression that the current one-size-fits-all approach *works well,* which is not only wrong, but laughably so. (There's a reason so many couples with choices between legal marriages and domestic partnerships choose the latter.)
> Under most (maybe all) state laws, if my wife has a baby, then I
> immediately acquire the rights and responsibilities of fatherhood
> because we're married.
In fact, I believe you acquire it because of the presumption that you're the biological father. I also think that presumption is rebuttable in many, if not most, jurisdictions, something fathers rarely consider.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."