The problem with "domestic partnership"Follow

Well, to be fair, gay people can easily get those tax benefits. They just have to marry a woman...

</gbaji>



Every time I kiss a man, a house erupts in flame.

It's only for the calendars.

Don't know why I bother, but what the heck?



False Dilemma. You're effectively arguing that he must either oppose homosexuality in general to the point of actively seeking out punishments, illegalization, etc, *or* he must accept and support gay marriage.


I've pointed this out, but it bears pointing out again. It's one of those subtle differences I've noticed between Liberal and Conservative thought on social issues. Conservatives believe that there is a broad range of moral/ethical conditions, and waaaaay on one side we have the things that society universally disagrees with and should be discouraged via some sort of legal intervention, and then waaaay on the other side we have things that society universally believes are good things and should be encouraged. In between is a huge range of free decisions that people may make and act on. Within that range some people will like or dislike them, but not to such a degree as to encourage or discourage them via legal means. Thus, it's not hypocritical at all for a Conservative to point at something he morally disagrees with, but *also* oppose legislative action to prevent it. He may condemn those who choose to do those things on moral grounds, but not insist on legal action.


Liberals tend to want to shrink that middle ground. Things tend to be viewed as either/or, black/white issues. Something is either bad and should be discouraged, or is good (or just "not-bad") and should be encouraged. Liberals tend to want to use the government to provide support and encouragement for any activity that isn't something they believe should be illegal. Thus, to a liberal, if something is bad you work to eliminate it from society. Everything else should be provided to the members of society.


To a conservative, that range in the middle represents the range of liberty. By eliminating it or even just shrinking it, you are eliminating our liberties. It's a side issue, I'll admit, but it bears mentioning because I keep seeing this same thing crop up in a whole set of social/political debates. The consistency with which many liberals insist that if something is a legal activity it should be rewarded or provided for is somewhat astounding. Of course, they usually use phrases like "But we have a right to do X", complete with some argument that if the government doesn't provide X, they're somehow infringing the right to do X.


It's a scary slippery slope IMO. Made worse by just how ubiquitous it is in liberal political thought.

There are *still* zero tax benefits to being married for 99% of gay couples, even if SCOTUS tomorrow ruled that gay marriage had to be universally recognized.

You want a false dilemma? There's your false dilemma, that gay marriage in any way burdens society monetarily is an absolute abject lie. That fight was lost 20 years ago when Palimony and Domestic Partnership benefits become commonplace.

But there is for the other 1%, isn't there?


And income tax is only one of many benefits granted by marriage Smash. We've discussed this before. Stop pretending that my argument is a one-trick-pony. The last time, I listed about 5 different benefits which were all purely financial and in no way necessary for a gay couple to live their lives together. I asked if you'd be ok if we just didn't give them that list of things, and you fell back on the "But that would be separate-but-equal" argument.



As long as there are no funded or mandated financial benefits, sure. But even when we remove those from "marriage" and apply them separately, you'd still insist we give them to gay couples. Your argument is pretty weak. It's not about the "marriage". It's about the benefits.

If the presence or absence of those financial benefits doesn't relate to the issue, then why insist that gay couples receive them?



Irrelevant Smash. You can't have it both ways. Either the financial benefits aren't important to the cause of gay marriage and can be separated from it, or they *are* important.

There are no facts for me to provide. No cites to list. I don't need to. It's a simple logic argument. Either the benefits aren't going to be needed or used by gay couples or they are. If as you claim, they aren't, then there should be no opposition to removing them from the benefits granted to gay couples when they marry. If they are relevant to you as to whether they are included or not, then they certainly can be relevant to me in terms of the cost.



Equality does not mean that everyone receives the same financial benefits from the government though. If you disagree with that, then you'd have to eliminate a good chunk of the current legal code in the US, especially funding programs. Let's start with Affirmative Action...




I don't have a problem with gay couples marrying. I have a problem with my government requiring me to pay gay couples for marrying. I have a problem with me footing the bill for a set of financial benefits that they don't need any more than I do.


If it's really just about the social status of "marriage", then why not separate the two? Why not change all the funded and mandated financial benefits that currently apply to all marriages, and apply them only to marriages between a man and a woman? Then we can change the legal requirements for the status of "marriage" to include same sex couples. If it's really just about the legal status, but not the whole set of financial benefits which are attached to said legal status, then there should be no opposition to this.

The last time we discussed this, I specified just a half dozen financial benefits currently granted to all married couples. IIRC, it was filing taxes under the married columns, gaining social security benefits from eachother, pension benefits for surviving spouse, military death payouts to spouse, and state mandated health care benefits to spouse. Note, all the civil contract assumptions currently attached to the legal status would stay. The social status would stay. Every single thing about marriage except those half a dozen things would be exactly the same.


You still argued that it was unacceptable. So yeah. I'm going to assume that those things are important. I don't have to prove it. You've proved it for me. They're clearly so important to you that you absolutely refuse to consider the changes I outlined.


You insist that these things aren't significant. You insist that gay couples don't really care about them, and that it's somehow wrong to argue against gay marriage on the basis of these things, but then you absolutely refuse to allow them to be taken off the table. You validate my argument when you do that Smassh. It's now up to you to show why I should be ok with providing those things to gay couples who marry. Yet, when I ask this of you, you keep falling back to how unimportant and irrelevant they are to the issue.


And for the record, this is *not* a false dilemma.

Then you'd be ok with the legal changes I proposed? We put requirements on those benefits which require you be married *and* a couple consisting of one male and one female? Cause that's not what you said last time...

Yup. And there is absolutely no law preventing anyone from doing this. You're only prohibited from filing a marriage license, which in turn grants you a set of benefits. No one's denied the "right" to marry, just the benefits currently granted to those who qualify for the legal status of marriage.



Sure. But let me make a slight adjustment:

People who might otherwise produce children as a natural consequence of their relationship should be encouraged to enter into a civil and legally binding status which will ease the burden of said children on the rest of us. It's not just about making their lives easier or just rewarding them for popping out babies. It's also about attempting to avoid the social and economic costs derived from children born to single mothers. Marriage, as it currently exists, does this.


This is exactly why I keep suggesting that we separate the concepts of the right of people to join into a social and civil contract of marriage, and the set of legally funded and/or mandated benefits we provide to those who do. That way, we can allow any and everyone to obtain the first, while retaining the utility of the second. But whenever we go down that line of reasoning, I inevitably face a chorus of "But that's separate but equal".


It's amusing how this argument always goes in circles:


1. People insist that gay couples should have a right to marry. Inevitably listing off a set of arguments like being able to visit and make medical choices about their partner, inheritance, sharing their lives, etc.

2. I say that they do, and that they can gain all of those things via a set of civil contracts and minor legal changes having nothing to do with marriage itself.

3. They respond that this just "isn't the same" as marriage, and that it's not just the civil benefits they originally mentioned, but also the legal recognition of their relationship.

4. I respond with the concept of civil unions and/or domestic partnerships. Those would be legally recognized, right?

5. They respond that it's still not the same. It's not just the civil contracts, and it's not just the legal recognition of their relationship, but also a social acceptance. Any legal status that isn't actually called "marriage" would always set them apart and be unequal/unfair.

6. I point out that there are legal benefits granted by marriage which simply don't apply to gay couples, so it's problematic to simply open the entire status up to gay couples and straight alike.

7. They respond that this isn't important to them and insist that I shouldn't care about it. It's not like gay couples care about this stuff, right? They must have the same exact legal status, and it must be called "marriage".

8. Ok... I then propose changes to the law which would allow marriage to be granted to gay couples. I suggest that we then go through the list of financial benefits currently granted to all married couples, and restrict those which don't apply to gay couples to just straight couples who are married. That way, the legal status, along with the attendant social associations would be preserved. Only a small set of financial benefits would be affected. I argue that if gay couples don't really want, need, or care about these things, that this should be acceptable.


9. It's still not enough. Sigh...


The issue here is that at some point, it stops being an argument about rights, or social acceptance, or any of the other reasons listed, and it becomes very apparent that this is just one sibling insisting that since Johnny got a blue car, I should get one too and the red one I got just isn't good enough... Whaaaaah! There is no logic or reason. It's an issue for the sake of having an issue to get riled up about.


That's pretty much what I've come to the conclusion on with regard to this issue. No amount of compromise will ever be good enough. It's childish. And at the end of the day, it's not really about gay marriage or gay rights at all.

The point is that the benefits discussion should be disentangled from the gay marriage discussion.

It makes it much easier to have dialogue about the issues when the two pieces are separated, and can be discussed based on their individual merits without involving extraneous arguments.

I hate to drudge up what's already been put on the table. But they already ruled that establishments can not be seperate but equal in Brown v. Board of Education. So yeah, gbaji, if the government lets Tim and Mary buy a blue car, Tommy and Tyler should be able to buy the same damn car.

I think Gbaji's past life was as a pro-Jim Crow Senator who kept saying that the schools are equal and all those damn colored folks were just stirrin' ****.

Edited, May 7th 2009 9:27am by SirElephant

You're from the deep south aren't you?

Gbaji, it'll help a lot if you stop looking it at a issue of this OR an issue of this OR an issue of this, and why can't we just address the issues individually!

You just said that from what you see, liberals view things as black/white issues, but you can't seem to wrap your head around gay marriage involving a variety of issues.

Edited, May 7th 2009 3:23pm by CBD

Because there's an assumption of joint ownership of property in a marriage. If I'm married to someone and they have $100,000 in a pension account, I have partial ownership of that. Whether or not there's an expectation that I have $100,000 of my own after a lifetime of labor or childrearing doesn't enter into it.Not really. If you take a blanket approach that these things serve to assist the family unit -- with or without the assumption of children -- they all fit the bill exactly as well.

Edited, May 7th 2009 4:18pm by Jophiel