For those curious, I was in a training class all last week, so I didn't get to post much. Been avoiding this specifically because it's not an easy/quick response (yeah, I know):
PigtailsOfDoom wrote:
Boy you sure love to be patronizing don't you? Do you really think the gays would care if they could get married if there wasn't certain benefits that marriage gave? If there weren't benefits to getting married over getting a civil union, they wouldn't really care about the difference. And yes, I do know that marriage gives special government benefits.
Why not? Heterosexual couples have been getting married for thousands of years before the US government started granting them benefits for doing so. Why then is this considered by gay couples to be the defining point in terms of what is or isn't a marriage? Isn't that silly?
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So following your logic, there was no need to give people of different colors of skin the right to marry, because that was giving them rights they wouldn't have had otherwise? But yet, when straight people get married, they get all these benefits that they wouldn't have had before. Any person who married another person of the opposite sex would get those benefits. By telling people they can't have those benefits if they marry someone of the same sex, you ARE taking those benefits away from them. Not only is that wrong (even by your book) it's discrimination.
You switched from rights to benefits mid-paragraph. Did you notice that? People of different skin colors were denied the right to marry. Meaning that simply living together and claiming to be husband and wife was illegal in many states and they could be fined and/or jailed for it. That's not the same as being denied a set of benefits because you are married.
And while I suppose technically we can speak of "taking away benefits", since the benefits are something given to you, this does not on total actually take anything away from you. I suppose it's just a matter of how you look at the issue though. I tend to start with the base condition, what things are like if the government doesn't step in and do anything. Then I ask how things are changed by the government's actions. Who gains and who suffers. Not getting a benefit doesn't make you suffer any more than anyone else (like single people) who pay for the cost of those benefits.
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There certainly aren't any sustained expense of being married, so I don't get why married people get a tax credit. To encourage people to get married I'm guessing, but why does the government care if people get married? So that they have kids so that the cycle of life continues? People already get a tax credit for having kids, and one doesn't need to get married to procreate.
There's an argument for it, but honestly I don't feel like re-hashing it. I will observe that if you can't figure out why we provide marriage benefits for anyone in the first place, then perhaps you're not in a good position to argue about who should receive those benefits.
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When? The GOP controlled both houses of congress and the White House for 6 years. Can you show me a single thing done at the federal level during that time which works towards turning our country into a theocracy? This is often claimed by screaming folks on the left, but it's amazing how it never actually happens.
Okay, that probably is a bit of a hyperbole on my part. But can you at least understand why those of us who aren't Christian might feel that way? Perhaps for you the reason to oppose gay marriage is because it would cost the tax payers more money, but that isn't ever the argument we hear against it. It's always "The Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman!" or some variant of that.
It's the argument you choose to hear. You ignore all other arguments. And frankly, it's the most common argument because when you seek out the opinions on gay marriage from religious people, you can't be surprised that you'll get a religious answer. And let's face it, whenever someone in the media wants to ask someone on the right about gay marriage, they magically find the most religious person they can. Perhaps if you spent the effort looking for other reasons, you might just find them? Hell. Google "secular arguments against gay marriage" sometime. Here's
the first result. Amusingly, this is *exactly* the same argument I've made on this forum many many times.
Yet, every time this subject comes up, someone insists that "no one makes any argument other than religious". No. You just don't listen to any argument other than the religious ones. And when you do hear them, you promptly forget them the next time the subject comes up.
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Conservatives in several different states have tried to get person-hood amendments passed, so that legally, an embryo is a person. Why do they want to do this? Because they believe that life begins at conception because that's what it says in the bible. That is a great example of how some conservatives are trying to pass laws that are based on theology.
Lol. It doesn't say that in the bible. In fact, one can make a strong case that the bible hints not only at abortion being acceptable, but also a somewhat "pro-choice" position (men are not allowed to abort a child, but women are under no such restriction, for example). The argument against abortion, while often expressed in religious terms (a soul entering the body from the moment of conception), has a hell of a lot more to do with broader ethical changes over time. It's a case of religious rules following social and ethical changes and *not* the other way around.
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Besides complaining that they don't want to pay for other people's health problems, one of the biggest complaints I hear from the right against having a universal health care system, is that it would take away their choice. I don't see how that's any different than what health insurance companies do. They have a list of preferred providers, and if you want to have your medical bills paid for, you have to go to those doctors. How is that a choice?
You can choose not to buy insurance from that company, or even to buy it at all. Mandated insurance takes that choice away and is a direct infringement of our rights.
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I suppose you could switch to a different health insurance company, but what if you have diabetes? What if you're pregnant? What if you have a history of ear infections? Those are all pre-existing conditions, and any new health insurance company you go to will not pay for any care related to those conditions. So once people pick a health insurance company, they're pretty much stuck with it unless they are healthy.
You're arguing by exception though. And the fact is that those people still have a choice. If continuing to keep that insurance is the better economic choice for them, then they'll make it. If it isn't, then they wont. It's not about the people who, because of their own health issues would make that choice anyway, but about all those who might make a different choice, but are now forced to make the one the government wants them to make.
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Because liberty does not guarantee an outcome. Liberty simply means that no one else will step in and change your outcomes against your will. Even if it's for the better. There's a difference between arguing that we should do something because you think it's a nice thing to do and demanding that we do it because it's a violation of someone's rights if we don't.
So what you are saying, is that it's okay for a health insurance company to deny paying for treatment for a life-threatening condition, even though they have paid their premiums every month, because if they hadn't had the insurance in the first place they wouldn't have been able to afford it anyways, and they still would have died? That makes no logical sense whatsoever. If that's not what you were trying to say, please elaborate.
Where the hell did you get that? If the thing you are paying the insurance company to do includes covering you if/when you get a life threatening illness, then you absolutely have a right to receive that treatment. You've paid for it.
All I'm saying is that you should always have the right to choose to buy or not buy that insurance in the first place. If you choose not to, then *you* have to suffer the consequences. Liberty does not guarantee an outcome. It does mean that you are free to make your own choice and reap the rewards or suffer the consequences naturally. I'm not sure how you got that so wrong.
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When you pay your premiums for health insurance, you are doing so under the belief that if you get sick, your insurance company will pay for you to get better. If you get sick, and the insurance company decides not to pay for you to get better, because it would cost them too much money, that IS stepping in and changing the outcome against your will. The insurance company paying for you to get better is not a "nice thing to do," it is what they owe their customers for them paying their premium. To not pay for their clients to get better, is essentially theft. They paid for a service they did not get.
Yes. And no one is arguing that insurance companies should be free to do this. We're arguing against the mandated payment of insurance premiums by everyone who can afford them (and government subsidizing the rest). That's the point where liberty is involved. The outcome I'm talking about is that someone who can't afford insurance wont have it. Taking money from someone else to give them insurance is altering the outcome. We can do this because it's a nice thing to do, but we should never do so because the person has a right to have their health insurance paid for.
Does that make sense?