Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
You say that as though there's a reason we wouldn't like it.
Plenty of people don't.
And plenty of people don't like sushi. Doesn't mean that your right to eat it has been infringed in anyway. In exactly the way that a gay couple's right to form a household hasn't. We're just not going to give them a special prize for having done so.
Quote:
Choices which result in a child. I'm not sure why the children who enter a family from adoption, artifical insemination, eBay, blended families or whatever are less worthy of a stable married family environment than "natural" children.
You're missing the point. Statistically, heterosexual couples will produce children, all on their own, whether the state intervenes or not, as a natural consequence of their sexual activity, and often regardless of whether they specifically choose to have a child or not. From a higher level, they must do this, or the species dies out. Thus, there's value to the state addressing this fact.
Edge cases in which individuals may choose to artificially inseminate themselves aren't really that significant. Unless we subsidize them, of course, in which case, just as has happened with single mothers, the rate at which it occurs will increase. That's just one more reason not to do it btw.
Quote:
Single income heterosexual households are a dying breed. When you come back from the 1950's, bring me some of Auntie May's pie, okay?
Ok. But most of the benefits we're talking about apply most directly to that very group, don't they? If they aren't relevant, then why fight so hard for same-sex couples to get them?
Quote:
Quote:
Yes. It does and would. The question is: Is there a need for this?
Sure. It keeps the households more stable. Stable households result in a more stable society.
But we don't need to provide them benefits to do that. A point you keep skirting in your arguments. The social benefits from stable households without children are identical whether those households are subsidized or not and will occur at about the same rate whether those benefits exist or not.
I'm not at all arguing that gay couples shouldn't form lasting relationships and even marry. I'm saying that there's no significant cost to society if they don't. Not when compared to the cost when heterosexual couples don't.
Quote:
Legally blending those things produces a household in which the total is greater than the sum of its parts. It is intrinsiticly stronger than two separate people using their own individual statuses.
Yes. All of which result from the civil contracts involving joint property, power of attorney, etc. The benefits provided by the state are not needed for this.
Quote:
It's lovely that you equate someone wanting to be able to take the time off to tend to a dying partner with them wanting a pony.
Ah the emotional argument. Again: Power of Attorney. As to getting leave? How hard is that exactly? This is the first time I've ever heard someone put a spin on this particular argument involving actually getting leave time for a dying partner.
Do I get leave if my best friend is dying in the hospital? No? Why not? I want my pony!!!
Again. This is something that's nice for the person involved, but not something that the government needs to provide or mandate. We just can't expect the government to provide for us in every situation. We need to restrict those things to those situations where it really matters. And I think that the whole "might produce children" bit is relevant in that calculation.
Remember. It's an incentive. It's a bit silly to argue that everyone should get the same incentive. By definition that means that those we want to encourage to marry are going to get something that the rest dont. You don't see me complaining that I don't get to visit my friends in the hospital, do you? From the state's perspective, there isn't any significant difference in our relationship either.
That may seem cold and harsh, but that's the simple fact. A gay couple's relationship is no different from the perspective of the state than my relationship with any of a number of friends. I'm not going to get any of them pregnant either, so the state really doesn't have a reason to care about what we do with our own time and our own financial condition, leave, etc...
Quote:
Again, it's lovely that your opinion of children in a family from some means other than being born there is "Tought shit for you that your parents didn't create you naturally."
Except the whole point is to deal with the fact that millions of children are going to be born "naturally" every year Joph. The cases where someone chooses to artificially inseminate herself, or chooses to adopt are rare in comparison and are true choices. The state can choose to put whatever restrictions on those actions it wishes, but it can't stop people from having sex.
Those children will be born whether the state gets involved or not. The marriage benefit provides an incentive for the parents of those children to produce them from within a civil and economic unit most suited to child raising. That other people may choose to obtain children through other means is their choice. The government is under no obligation to provide anything special for them though.
Quote:
However, the child has considerable protections under the step-parent which don't exist without a married relationship between the biological parent and the step-parent. Furthermore, this scenario disregards any chance that the biological parent(s) may not be around due to death, adoption situations, etc.
Only because the woman re-marries someone who may also get her pregnant.
If she moves in with a roommate, they don't get this. If she lives alone, she doesn't get this. You see how it's the same situation? The point isn't to provide benefits to whomever someone chooses to live with, but to provide an incentive for heterosexual couples to marry. Period. Digging up a whole bunch of scenarios just ignores the core issue. Those benefits don't exist just to give a parent of a child some extra bonuses (we do that in other ways), but to encourage her, in the event that she may form a relationship with someone else who might get her pregnant (a man) to marry that person.
If she chooses to live with a woman, there's no reason to incent them to do anything. The woman isn't going to get her pregnant.
Quote:
The rest really isn't worth answering. It's you stomping your feet and declaring over and over that only "natural" children matter and that society doesn't really benefit from committed households working to remain self-sustaining and being able to cope with major downturns. Well, unless they're making natural children.
All children matter Joph. You're completely missing the point. It's about the potential for additional children to enter the picture, not about subsidizing the care of the existing ones. You keep thinking this is some kind of social welfare program. It's not. It's an incentive. Let me say that again: "IN-CENT-IVE".
It's applied prior to entering the relationship. It's a carrot. If that woman chooses to enter into a sexual relationship with a man, she might produce another child which may need care. Thus, we create an incentive for her to marry that man. If she enters into a sexual relationship with a woman, there's no need to incent her to do anything at all.
You keep missing that it's about trying to get as many opposite-sex couples as possible to marry. Period. If they are engaging in activities which might result in children (ie: sex) it's better that they get married first rather than have a child first and then make a decision. That's the point. The benefits are supposed to provide a reason for them to do this (or at least nudge them in that direction).
If people want to enter into other types of relationships, that's their own business. But the objective of the state in this case is to try to get as many male/female couples to marry as possible. Because the more of them who marry, the more children will be born inside that safer marriage construct. It's not a perfect system, but it's better than not having it at all.
Providing those benefits to same-sex couples is silly. Let me give you yet another analogy:
Imagine if there was a health crisis going on. Polio lets say. Lets imagine that there's a vaccine, but you're having a hard time getting parents to send their kids in to get it, meaning more kids are being afflicted with the disease. Let's say that that government gets involved and provides a special tax break to parents who have their children vaccinated.
Your argument is like saying that this is somehow unfair to people who don't have children. Afterall, you could use a tax break too! You argue that there would be a benefit to society if everyone got said tax break instead of just parents of vaccinated children. Then you bring up a sob story about people who are infertile and have tried to have children, but failed being denied this tax break through no fault of their own. And what about parents of children who already died of the disease before the vaccination? It's unfair to them as well. Boo hooo!
The point missed is that the benefit is an incentive. It's a recognition that the status quo (kids not being vaccinated, or heterosexual couples having kids without being married) is harmful in some way. The benefits exist to try to get people to change what they're doing (get their kids vaccinated, or get married before having kids). Looking at it purely from the perspective of the benefits themselves and arguing that other groups could also benefit from having them really misses the whole point.
Just as you've missed the point here. I don't know how many times I can keep repeating this same argument. It's an incentive. We're trying to get couples who would otherwise produce children anyway to marry. It's specific to relationships in which one member is male and the other is female, because that's the exact combination required to produce a child. It's such an obvious thing...
Edited, Nov 7th 2008 8:03pm by gbaji
