Op.ed.-ing for Free Inquiry

As previously announced (at some point!), I've recently joined the team of op.ed. columnists for Free Inquiry, the fine magazine published by the Council for Secular Humanism. My first column, on "scientism", appeared earlier this year in the April/May issue. I've just sent off my second, on the state and the marriage game - so that's something to watch out for!

This is largely a reflection on same-sex marriage, though without the depth of defence in Freedom of Religion and the Secular State or here at the ABC portal. I'm actually a bit more focused this time on broader worries about whether the state might eventually withdraw from the marriage game, so that we no longer have a legal category of "marriage" - though we'd still need laws relating to next of kin, property disputes, the welfare of children and so. If there is eventually no legally-established template of "marriage", but just various relationships with reasonable laws to provide protections to the parties involved, then why would that necessarily be a bad thing? That's pretty much how the law operates now for couples who choose not to marry (though in the US in particular, it is currently difficult for them to access the required legal rights without getting formally married).

Free Inquiry publishes some of its content online to whet your appetite, but to get everything, you need to receive the hard copy ... which I think is fair enough.