The problem with "domestic partnership"Follow

/shrug

story linked in another thread, which has now devolved into discussion about breakfast



So. By extension, marriage saves you that much money if you're putting that other person on your health care. Just because no one's ever done the math for you doesn't mean you aren't saving money because you qualify for said benefits.

It's tax code. The government allows employer provided health benefits to be paid pre-tax for any benefits extended to a spouse of a married employee. Whereas if you wish to add someone who is not your spouse or child to your health insurance, you can, but you have to pay taxes on the cost of the benefit. So, instead of your employer simply paying $4000 a year more for your health care, that $4000 counts as "income" for you, on which you must pay taxes. Which, apparently, works out to about $1820/year.


You get a tax break on health insurance. That's a financial benefit of marriage.

Edited, May 15th 2009 7:21pm by gbaji

Farflong's argument is not unfamiliar. It's not based on anything, but it's definitely not unfamiliar.

I'll say this, as a bisexual person, I could marry someone of either gender. As a citizen, I don't think that we should allow gender discrimination in terms of whom I want to be with. It's not about the fact that I can't help it. I'm not one of those apologetic ****** that is like "I WAS BORN THIS WAY, I CAN'T HELP IT." This is who I am and there is no reason that some motherfUcker with a pseudo-scientific theory has the right to deprive me of my civil rights. And the whole concept of having good relationships forming heterosexuality? Really? Did you fail Freshman psychology? You know, when they have repeatedly debunked that theory because it has no merit?

Christ and what is this motherfUcking natural law sh*t. Dude, seriously, MARRIAGE itself violates natural law. Do you think we were biologically geared towards monogamy? It's a manmade social institution conferring rights and legitimacy on certain couples. We want those same rights and the same legitimacy. It's not just good for same sex couples, it's good for society. People benefit from families, whose complex interrelationships and mutual support system helps people both in terms of achievement and success (like the support people benefit from their spouses or other family member support to raise children and work) and to mitigate the problems created by things like illness and other things families struggle with. If you don't have a natural support system, you usually have to rely on the state for help like that-- marriage is a creation of a familial tie and it strengthens society. It has nothing to do with "natural law." And it isn't solely about the creation of children. Anyone who thinks that the family unit only exists to support a nuclear family who produces children needs to study the history of mankind beyond Eisenhower's America.



Edited, May 16th 2009 1:45am by Annabella

I don't @#%^ing care. My choice to be gay or not is as inconsequential, morally, as my choice to put the toilet paper on the bar facing the outside or the inside. It's completely unrelated.

Great, it's a choice. So is eating chicken instead of beef.



You are.

Painfully.


Is/ought distinction. Open a ******* book.

Edited, May 16th 2009 2:09am by Pensive

You're a fucking idiot.

1.)its based on my belief just like your is.

2.) who cares if you've heard it before, obviously you didnt understand it the first time because you've chosen to insult me by telling me my argument is baseless when in fact its basis is formed from my culture. To me, you come across as insulting my culture. Not a very good diplomatic move.

3.) of course, i didnt think this up. A function of culture is that people can draw from collective beliefs and learn certain knowledge from 'elders' in a specific cultural agent. Are you telling me that the only way to type on a keyboard is to invent the whole thing from scratch as opposed to simply buying it because it is the desired instrument to communicate?

>_>

It's nice to at least ******* question it yeah.



Then you should know how absolutely retarded it is to argue ethics by stating facts about nature.

Get a refund.

Actually, I started at the bottom of the thread and worked my way up so that was the first post of his that I saw. Not that my opinion has changed.

I love the part where Lot was going to let the crowd gang rape his two daughters. What a good man.

Your "culture." Your "culture" tells you what to think?

Our "culture" tells us that mutant women who are 5'9" and 105 lbs are the ideal we should all strive for, creating an epidemic of women and girls with anorexia. But hey, it's okay if they kill themselves by slow starvation, because their "culture" told them to do it, right?

A number of tribal "cultures" in the Middle East and Africa like to slice the genitalia off little girls, which--if it doesn't kill them--impairs their sexual function for life. The United Nations and W.H.O. call this a human rights violation and have asked for a world-wide ban on the process. But, golly, their "culture" tells them it's okay, so it must be just dandy, right?

Our "culture" told us that it was okay to enslave black people, that they weren't actually humans at all, but animals. That we could force them to do our labor for us, house them in abominable conditions, rape them, sell their children right out of their arms, put them on the auction block to be felt up and inspected like heads of cattle. Now the very idea is abhorrent to us, but it must have actually been a swell idea, because our "culture" told us it was okay, right?

Whew! Calling you a "fucking idiot didn't even come close to addressing how profoundly stupid you are.

Edited, May 16th 2009 8:46am by Ambrya