gbaji wrote:
I believe that the benefits provided by the legal status of marriage serve as an incentive to get heterosexual couples to marry. I believe that this is a worthwhile objective because the cost to society if too many heterosexual couples have children without being married is greater than the cost of the benefits. I also believe that since homosexual couples do not produce children as a natural consequence of being a couple, that there is no reason to apply this incentive to them. They can choose to form lasting relationships if they wish. They can choose to enter into a set of identical civil contracts if they wish. But there is no societal reason to provide them with an incentive for doing so.
Thus, I believe that it is perfectly reasonable to restrict qualification for those benefits to couples consisting of one male and one female.
Now. For the umpteeth time, I've explained why I hold my position. I'm still waiting for a similarly well thought out assessment of this from the other side.
I've given the same in other threads.
Much of society is based around the household unit. People come together to form households, whether it was their intent or not, pool their resources to be able to afford homes, cars, vacations, medical care, etc. When one member has something happen, they can rely on the other member(s) for additional support, making it less likely that they'll need to rely on government or charitable services. This pooling of resources is also beneficial to the raising of children for the obvious reasons -- kids are expensive and they don't bring anything to the table so raising one as a solo endevour is hard.
Whether folks like it or not, people of the same sex form households. These households undergo the same catastrophic incidients that heterosexual households undergo. People lose jobs, get hurt, fall ill or have some other thing happen which threatens their lives. Allowing committed same sex couples to marry means that they are equally capable of accessing the tools to keep their boats upright in these waters. This includes the full range of state and federal benefits such as accessing Medicare, Social Security, secured FMLA leave, etc. This also includes private institutions which extend benefits for married couples but are not required to extend the same benefits to same sex couples (although some may on an individual basis) such as insurance.
It is in society's best interests to strengthen these committed households by allowing them the full range of married benefits. Giving them the full range of tools to cope with catastrophic events in their lives or the lives of their partner may mean one less house in foreclosure, one less bankruptcy due to medical expenses or one less unemployed person as they try to tend to their partner. It is better for society to prevent things such as bankruptcies, foreclosures, repossessed properties as such things weaken society as a whole. Private contracts do not allow for the full range of tools to be implemented. State recognized same sex marriage doesn't. Federally sanctioned marriage does and it's the only thing that does.
This is completely ignoring the fact that, although a same sex couple may not bear children via their own union, children may indeed be brought into same sex households by various means such as adoption, fertilization outside the union, artifical fertilization within the union or blended households with existing children. These child deserve the same levels of protection in the event of a catastrophic event in their household as the "natural" children of heterosexual marriages. They deserve to gain from the benefits of their
both of their parents should one die (i.e. Social Security, veteran's benefits, insurance payouts, etc) and deserve to have the full range of tools to care for them should they become ill. Both parents deserve to be able to contribute to the medical care, insurance, financial access, etc of their child. This, again,
strengthens the household unit and thusly strengthens society. When a child falls ill and
both parents in the household have the ability to access federally guaranteed FMLA leave to help their sick child, this is a
good thing. Again, private contracts or even state-only sanctioned marriage does not provide the parents with the full range of tools to do so. Only federally sanctioned marriage does.
Same sex marriage has no detrimental effect on me. Critics may toss out phrases like "He can still get married... to a woman!" but that only proves my point. Should gay men Joe & Sam marry lesbians Sally & Mary then the supposed burden upon me is no more than if Joe married Sam and Sally married Mary. Whether or not Joe & Sam, living next to me, are married or simply cohabitating has no effect on me. But Joe & Sam's home going into foreclosure does. It is better for the nation to support and uplift same sex households in the same manner as heterosexual households because, in the end, both are the units upon which our nation is built.
