Vermont Legislature Legalizes Gay MarriageFollow

Okay, I'm not a regular poster in the Asylum, but I'm a daily lurker. I just had to post this.

I love Varrus. I've been reading this guy when I can for a long time now -- I say "when I can" because I have to be quick to catch his posts before they get unrated (although lately it seems some people have been rating him up just to keep him above the filters).

The only thing I haven't been able to decide is, is this guy for real? I mean ... I like to think I'm a semi-intelligent person. I like to take myself outside of scenarios and examine all possible sides of arguments. I've been known to recognize flaws in my own arguments, and I choose to think logically rather than passionately. I'm not afraid to allow myself to look like a fool for a moment for any ignorant thoughts on a particular matter than to remain ignorant.

I guess my real question is: who here really takes him seriously?

Reading what he has to say is a double-edged sword. I love reading it because it really makes me laugh and helps strengthen my own thoughts on the subject matter (I've yet to see something he and I share a common ground on). However, every post I see of his I rate down, and I can't help but doing it. It's like watching a train wreck, I just can't look away.

I guess I'll stop here before this post gets too gbaji-esque. I just can't help but think, after all of the accounts this guy has made, that this forum has a deep love-hate relationship with him. We love arguing with him because he's willing to be as stupid as we want him to be.

I like reading gay marriage argument threads and imagining that people are specifically arguing for and against me, personally, getting married to my partner Leo. It makes me feel like a beautiful unique butterfly.

Then I laugh at everyone because even if gay marriage was legal across the board, we probably wouldn't participate.

DAMNIT! Another state instituting gay marriage? Unacceptable! This makes my agenda of making all marriage illegal even harder! ;D

(but srsly, congrats Vermont)

Please please please please let Maine be next.

If this doesn't pass, I'm going to be a ******* mess for weeks.

Nexa

gbaji, I'm sure you've answered this some other time, but really, I don't read these threads on gay marriage because it's just repetition on everyone's behalf, but if the only reason to not allow gay marriage is because there are no benefits to society, why are benefits given to heterosexuals who have no children? They offer nothing to society that a gay couple doesn't?

Before this somehow comes back to bite me in the ***, if you think this question is loaded somehow, please PM me the answer instead.

Then really what the issue is, is that people without children should not get the same rights as those with children. There should be no line between sexually orientation, it should be between benefits to society. One is discrimination against a group of people, the other is simply frugal spending.

I'll let you go back to the last thread where this question was answered fairly throughly by Jophiel, and a little by others. It has however been answered, and it was answered without looping back to the unfair response.

I agree with ugly here. Given the fact that it's fairly common to not have kids, or that people get married for the tax benefits, then in this day and age, if we are going to give married couples benefits without the fact of kids, then we should give it to gay marriage as well, regardless of the positives or negatives. I also think that incentives for entering into a relationship are fine, a point you disagree with, but I don't feel that it needs to be part of the equation.

You didn't expect me to take your question seriously when all you did was circumvent my question with a question of your own and thereby, never answering the question, did you?

I know your willful ignorance shouldn't astound me by now, yet somehow it still does. Arbitrarily granting rights to one group and not another is practically the definition of discrimination, but you're perfectly fine with blowing it off as entirely invalid?

I would be fine if families were given a tax break on the basis of how many children they have (such as we have), because that does indeed show a return for the money being paid in. And I would also be fine if the current tax laws for married couples were extended to gay couples as well. But until the former is true, the latter is absolutely necessarily. It is completely abhorrent to give rights to straight couples arbitrarily (because it's not on the basis of children, and potential children is a hideous basis), and deny these exact same rights to homosexual couples for no logical reason at all.

I've listed the positives gained by society as a result of granting those benefits to straight couples. You are free to disagree with them, or argue that they aren't sufficient, or don't work in all cases, but as I've already pointed out, that only counts as an argument for why we might want to further limit marriage benefits as they apply to straight couples.

It does *not* qualify as an argument to expand those benefits to include gay couples. I'm asking why gay couples should receive those benefits. No one *ever* seems to be able to answer this question.

Black/white couples can produce children (if they consist of a man and a woman). Gay couples *cant*. Ever.

The fact that not every single heterosexual couples who marries will produce children is a valid argument for restricting some marriage benefits. But it does not change the absolute biological fact that 0% of all gay couples will produce children together. Zip. Zero. Nada.


Using the "But gay couples might also have children" argument essentially argues that we should provide the same incentives for a person to have a child with one person while gaining the financial benefits with someone else as a couple in which the father and mother of the child are the ones who are married. That's not exactly what we should be encouraging, should it?



But to no greater degree that single people, right?


And that's where your argument falls apart.

Ah. Finally, a decent answer! Thank you...


Um... But it's kinda like the insurance issue I talked about in the other thread. We don't know which of the heterosexual couples who marry might have children together, so we "insure" them all with the benefits to make sure that as many who might produce children will be married as possible.

We know that 0% of gay couples will have children together. Thus, there is no reason to create any incentives for them to marry.

No. No no no no absolutely no.

We "insure" them once they already have children or are pregnant. What is difficult about that? There's the exact same incentive to have children as there was before - the tax break is the exact same. You're just trying hard to find a legitimate excuse to prevent gays from marrying at this point.