The most incredibly stupid ignorant hateful thing I've read Follow

I hope that some day I meet a nice girl who'll go all ******* crazy when I fuck around on her.

Yeah, but the only reason he'd be in favor of it is because republicans eat their young.

Maybe I just need someone to translage Gbaji to me, but I don't see how you answered even one of my questions.

So people arguing that children in same sex households should be able to enjoy the benefits of their parents being married shows that liberals believe that marriage has nothing to do with it and we should pay for the kids regardless of their parents' marital status?

Oooooohhhhh-kay then!

Yes. It does. Because you're aiming the benefits at the existence of a dependent, and not towards encouraging people to create those dependents in a specific environment in the first place.

How exactly did that child end up in a same sex household? One of the child's parents had that child with someone else, then left that person (or was never with that person in the first place), and then hooked up with someone else. While it's nice that the child's parent in this case found someone else to help out, wouldn't it have been better if the two biological parents of the child were there from the beginning?


The belief from the conservative perspective is that if you just provide the same dependent benefits no matter what household condition a child may be in, while that may seem better for a child already in that state, it creates an incentive for children to be in those states in the first place. We can debate the idea of a same sex couple raising a child, but I think we can all agree that s single parent raising a child is less beneficial to both parents doing so, right? Yet. If you separate the benefits from marriage, this ends up happening more often (already have been in fact).

That's the "baby with the bathwater" case I'm talking about. It seems simplistic when you just look at it from a "what do I get to do" perspective and view it as gay couples not getting something that heterosexual couples get. But when you look at the effects of these things, there is real harm that will arise as a result of gay marriage that has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality at all.

Terrorist.

Nexa

You're correct, of course, but have you considered why it is that the rate of children born to single women has increased by a factor of 10 in the last 50 years? Not surprisingly, during the exact same time frame in which we removed the social penalties for out of wedlock pregnancy and added direct economic benefits aimed at those caring for dependent children regardless of marital status.


While I'm sure a "correlation!=causation" argument is looming, there's a point at which you have a hard time not seeing a pretty obvious pattern of action and reaction. It's not unreasonable to expect that if 3% of children were born to single mothers back when there were horrific social stigmas to do so and women/children in that condition received zero financial help, that if you remove the stigma and provide financial assistance for those in that state that the percentage will go up. It's so obvious of a result that I'm always amazed when people try to pretend that they can't possibly be connected.

Conservatives argued that we shouldn't provide direct dependent benefits for exactly that reason. We got overruled by a liberal majority that was sure they knew better how to engineer society. Today, that percentage is at 35% (and over 70% for African Americans). We've made it less painful, but there are more people in that state. Which is *exactly* what I was talking about. By targeting benefits directly at those in the problem state you end up increasing the number of people "in need". If we instead aim those benefits at encouraging people not to get into that state in the first place, we're better off.

Agree or disagree, it's a bit unfair to simply ignore the argument entirely...



Let me add a bit of broader social agenda observation as well. It's interesting to me just how many liberal positions, which appear to be "cause based" at first glance, just happen to result in an increase in the number of people in some needy state. Amazing really. One might suspect that this is the actual objective or something.

Edited, Nov 10th 2008 6:28pm by gbaji

I'm with gbaji!!

We need more 'horrific social stigmas'. That will make the world a happier place for sure.

It would solve the ghey rights movement 'problem' as well.

Its win/win!

There are a host of problems, but yes.



If they're loving, nothing. But you can't guarantee that, just as we can't guarantee that with a heterosexual couple either. It's an unfair comparison. A lesbian is just as likely to decide to get artificially inseminated in order to feel good about herself (or any of a number of godawful reasons women get knocked up nowadays), and then proceed to jump from one bad relationship to another, resulting in a totally screwed up and potentially abused along the way child as a heterosexual woman is. The difference is that she has to go quite a bit farther out of her way to do this. Additionally, the "worst case" situation in the case of the straight woman is that she and the father of her child have nothing to do with each other. That's the default condition for the lesbian woman...


Here's the deal though. It's not illegal for the lesbian to choose to artificially inseminate herself. But just because someone can choose to do something doesn't mean we should subsidize it. Just as I wouldn't choose to reward the single woman for having a child either. There's no difference in my mind. Both are equally harmful to the child. What happens after that point is a completely different subject. The straight woman could choose to live with a friend of hers willing to help with the child, and the child may benefit from it. Just as a lesbian may choose to live with her partner who is also willing to help with the child, and the child may benefit from it. Those are both good, but we don't subsidize things just because they are good choices to make.

The point, as I mentioned to Joph earlier, is that if the straight woman chooses to marry a man later, the marriage benefit is *not* designed specifically to help her with the existing child, but for the benefit of any children she may have with that man. The objective is to encourage heterosexual couples to marry. I keep having to repeat that, but it really seems like most of you aren't getting it. The purpose is to avoid a negative (child born to a single mother). It's not a straight social welfare program to help provide for children.


I know that many of you don't agree with this, but then ask why the benefits have existed as they have for so long? Why create them in the first place? Clearly, someone thought that marriage was an important thing for heterosexual couples to get into. And at some point, we decided to create benefits for those who did it. Adding homosexual couples to the mix only makes sense if the original reasons we need them to marry exist. And they just don't...

This article wasn't as interesting as I had hoped

Rocinante

Nah. Don Quixote may have been deluded, but those delusions were born out of a desire to actually make the world a better place based on principles of fairness and nobility and self-sacrifice. Gbaji and Virus are essentially dedicated to keeping it hateful and selfish.