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That's the thing, once the government creates a benefit, they have to be willing to extend to all without discrimination. If they are discriminating, they have to have a valid reason for it, such as that they intend marriage to encourage reproduction. But if that is the case, they have to actually test every couple for reproductive capabilities, or simply not extend the benefits until the children are produced.

It reminds me of how it's illegal for an employer to have requirements or test applicants for things that aren't pertinent to the job if the requirements (even unintentionally) have the effect of discriminating against one of the protected groups.



Edited, Feb 25th 2009 12:14am by trickybeck

In attempt to bring 'equality' to all citizens of Maine, Equality Maine is in the midst of a postcard campaign (fill out a postcard signing off on your support - they get collected and sent to the appropriate law-makers). I have a couple good friends who are really putting themselves out there for the cause (they've recently been on multiple local news programs telling their story). It's been incredibly hard for them, but inspirational to us not directly involved with the campaign. I was talking to 'Carla' this morning. She said it's hard approaching friends and co-workers she knows support the cause, let alone those that look on her, her partner and their beautiful little boy, with disdain.

I can only hope that there will be a day when even the gjabis of this country see how narrow-minded, unjust, destructive, and just plain WRONG our current views, laws, and practices regarding marriage and family life really are.

But in this case, the label only matters for the purpose of applying for benefits. There is no law making it illegal for any two (or more) people to call their relationship a marriage. There's no law prohibiting anyone from wearing a wedding ring, introducing their partner as their husband/wife/whatever, or any other social use of the label.

What you are prohibited from doing is filling out a form applying for benefits (taxes, loans, insurance, etc) and checking the "married" box. That is specific to whether or not a legally accepted marriage licenses was granted and is on file with the state. Period.

When you are fighting for the "right" to file your taxes as a married couple, or qualify for health insurance as a married couple, you aren't asking for the label, you're asking for the benefits. Can we please cut through the BS here?

Yes. That is the change being proposed. Let's put a little pin next to this for the moment.



Two points:

1. I disagree with your phraseology. You've split this into two different things, but more accurately, there are three aspects to marriage. The social aspect (the relationship between the people involved, the civil aspect (the legal contracts and whatnot involved), and the legal status aspect (any special laws/benefits the state may apply). Traditionally, the state's only involvement in "recognizing" a marriage was based on the civil aspects of marriage. Most significantly, the division of property, inheritance, and parental responsibility. The state enforces those things, but does not "grant" them and the people do not need permission from the state to enter into those agreements (ie: Don't need a marriage license, which is what's at issue here).

2. I disagree that this is really a "change". I believe that these three things have always been separate (legally speaking at least). It's just that until recently they were always bundled together because the only people who were going out and getting married were the same people who needed the civil contracts and for whom the state benefits made sense. The change, as you pointed out, is that gay couples want to gain this.

It would be no different than if historically the only people who labeled themselves as "handicapped" had real physical handicaps. We might grant them special benefits from the state for being handicapped and commonly refer to both as "being handicapped". But imagine if one day people with green eyes decided to call themselves handicapped? Should they be able to qualify for the same benefits? After all, the reason the benefits were created was to help out people with handicaps, right? If they just say they're handicapped, don't they qualify? And I could argue that they "need" the benefits just as much as blind people. Who are you to deny them their free doggies or whatever? And hey! Green eyed people are a minority too! So you must hate minorities for wanting to deny green eyed people their right to be handicapped...


Absurd? Absolutely. But that's how I see this issue as well. It smacks of wanting something just because someone else has it. And while we keep hearing that the benefits aren't the objective, even in a state like California where there is virtually zero difference between Domestic Partnerships and Marriage, the push is still on. Even when all legal differences *except* a small handful of benefits have been removed, it's still being fought for.


That's absurd too. Isn't it?



Again. Nothing is preventing gay couples from marrying. I've said this repeatedly. There is no law prohibiting them from having a marriage ceremony, taking vows, and referring to each other as husband/wife/whatever. There is no law prohibiting them from entering into the exact same set of civil contracts either. The *only* thing they are denied is the government mandated benefits.




Only if you judge yourself and your relationship purely based on the amount of government benefits you derive. Which I find bizarre...

How is one "inferior" to the other? Again. There's nothing preventing you from calling yourself married. Other than you and a government form you are filling out, how is your marriage "inferior"? I just don't get it.



I'm sure they do. But there are very real reasons why it makes sense to provide a set of benefits to opposite sex couples who promise to spend their lives together but not to same sex couples who do the same. I've gone over these reasons dozens of times in the past, so I'm not going to repeat them. Do you agree that there is a justification for different benefits?


From a more pragmatic approach. Do we change all the laws which reference the legal status of "marriage" when determining if a given benefit is to be derived? Or do we just provide a civil status that matches everything except those benefits? A change is needed either way. But one is vastly easier than the other.


And I'm quite sure that if the state went through all its laws and changed everything that granted benefits based on being "married" to "married to an opposite sex partner", we'd be getting just as much howling from the gay rights folks, right? Wouldn't they still call it discrimination? Wouldn't they still call it bigoted? So isn't it pretty clear that it's not about what we call it? It's about the benefits. And in the broad sense, it's about using an easily manipulated minority as a sledgehammer to attack conservatives politically.



Follow the logic to it's endpoint. It's pretty obvious that it's not "just" about rights, or "just" about labels. And I'm pretty sure it's not really just about benefits either. In a weird way, I suspect that the cause is just about the cause. It's about sustaining a group of people in a self perceived state of denigration for as long as possible so as to gain as much political mileage as possible. That's just my opinion, but it's the one common bit to all of this. It doesn't seem to matter how much ground conservatives give on this issue, there's always something else that gets fought over, isn't there? At some point, do we realize that it's contrived?


Why do people need the government to validate their relationships?

Want to know the two ways this could turn out Gbaji? Let me know if it would change your methodology at all, based on the results you would prefer.

Scenario A: It takes a bit more time for the initial push for this social reform movement to get off the ground. More or less all of the current benefits of marriage are scooped up as the requirement for 2 different sexes is removed from the "definition" of marriage.

Scenario B: It takes less time for the social reform movement to get enacted. The benefits of marriage end up subdivided into two distinct groups. One of the groups is extended to all married people, regardless of orientation, and the second group is extended to all couples who are raising children, regardless of orientation.

Let me add one more bit here. I'm going to start at the beginning (again).


A liberty is anything you can do for which you do not have to get permission. If there is no authority telling you what you may or may not do, then you have full liberty. I've talked about this before, but it bears repeating.

A right, while often used synonymously with "liberty" is more correctly (and narrowly) defined as a liberty that the government specifically promises not to infringe. Let me take a moment to observe that had Jefferson and Hamilton used more clear meanings for these things they might have had far fewer arguments concerning the Bill of rights. Hamilton was the one who argued that if you set up a specific list of "rights", that it would imply that other "rights" weren't automatically assumed. If he'd made a distinction between rights and liberties, this concern wouldn't have occurred. He'd know that just because a liberty is defined as a "right" doesn't mean that the only liberties we possess are those listed in a "bill of rights". But hey! The confusion with the terminology goes way back, so let's not blame them. I just mention this because to explain a bit about my reasoning.

The point is that a right is a liberty, and liberties are things you don't have to ask permission to do.


When you fill out a marriage license, what you are doing? Aren't you asking "permission" for something? Ergo, the thing you are asking permission for *cannot* be a right (or liberty). Period. End of story.

The state denying permission (rejecting a marriage license in this case) cannot ever be a denial of rights. Ever. That's the key point to recognize here. What you are doing when you fill out a marriage license is applying for a set of benefits in return for doing something (like getting married). But denying your application for benefits is *not* a denial of the right to marry.


Here's an example:

Let's say the government decides that exercise is a good thing. They institute a program where anyone who exercises at least 10 hours a week will receive a tax reduction. First point. The right to exercise exists regardless of whether or not you receive a tax reduction for doing it. There's no law preventing you from exercising, right? Now. If you go out and exercise, then apply for the tax reduction, but the government for some reason denies your application, did the government infringe your "right" to exercise? I think it's pretty obvious that they didn't. They just didn't provide you a reward for doing it.

Let's say that you believe that only 8 hours of exercise is necessary for good health. But the government only gives our tax deductions if you do 10. Can you argue that the government is unfairly discriminating against you? Maybe. Maybe not. But whatever argument you make that the criteria should be lowered to 8 hours, at no point can you fairly argue that by not reducing the criteria to 8 hours the government is infringing on your "right" to exercise. You can still choose to exercise just 8 hours a day if you wish. They just aren't going to give you anything for it.


Gay couples can marry. They can enter into all the civil contracts related to marriage. They don't need to ask permission to do this, just as heterosexual couples do not. The only thing at stake here is whether or not the government provides a reward to any specific couple for marrying. And just as with the exercise example above, not granting a reward does not remove the right. It *can't*. Rights and benefits are not the same thing. I started out trying to make this point, and I'm *still* trying to get many of you to understand why this is critical to this issue. If you fail to recognize that difference, you cannot intelligently address the issue of gay marriage...

I love how gbaji still believes that tax incentives are the reason why people procreate.


Edited, Feb 27th 2009 5:02pm by baelnic

I think the US should stop allowing death certificates to be filled out for dead gays. It's not as though they need them to die so I can't see a problem with it.

I shouldn't have to edit to say this but we all know it must be done: this was a JOKE. Gbaji doesn't need to spend six paragraphs defining why this isn't really the same thing and then declare himself the winner for dismantling an off-hand quip.

Edited, Feb 27th 2009 6:12pm by Jophiel

I never would have guessed this day would come but I need to ramp up my emoticon useage so as to maybe prevent some of these little misunderstandings.

Yes Smash. You do realize that the child doesn't cease to exist in a puff of government smoke if a birth certificate isn't filled out, right? The certificate only records the birth. It does not give the parents the "right" to have a child, and it doesn't give the child a right to exist.



And even you used the term "benefits" there didn't you? You'll be a conservative in no time! :)



The right to be born isn't granted by filling out a birth certificate though. That's the point. The argument I'm opposing is the idea that if someone isn't granted a marriage license, that they are being denied the right to marry. By analogy, are you arguing that if we don't fill out a birth certificate, the child doesn't have a right to be born?


And let's not forget that a license isn't the same as a certificate. But I'm just giving you the benefit of the doubt for the sake of demolishing your absurd argument. Now, if the state issued birth licenses to people wanting to have a child, you *might* have a point. Um... But we don't do that. You know why? Because then having a child wouldn't be a right. See how the whole "having to ask permission" makes something not be a right/liberty anymore?

Joph?

What part of "I disagree with that decision" did you not get the first time?


I disagree with Roe v. Wade as well. Arguing that I'm wrong purely by repeating what Roe v. Wade says is a really dumb argument.

The right to be born isn't granted by filling out a birth certificate though. That's the point. The argument I'm opposing is the idea that if someone isn't granted a marriage license, that they are being denied the right to marry. By analogy, are you arguing that if we don't fill out a birth certificate, the child doesn't have a right to be born?

Nope. I'm arguing that the arbitrary delineation you're making between "rights" and "befits" is utterly meaningless, absurd, and completely without any merit logically or rhetorically. The birth certificate thing was just mocking you. In point of fact, I'd say about 96% of anything I post in response to you is pure sadistic mockery.

Someday, when you're a little wiser, you may be able to riddle out where the 4% lies that's actually argument.