BrownDuck wrote:
Here's the part that makes you an idiot. There's nothing stopping any single mother from realizing that she's gay and wanting to marry a female lover.
You're correct. And if the stated case for the TANF benefits is to encourage her to marry so as to reduce the likelihood of her producing yet another child out of wedlock, that reason no longer applies to her, right?
My argument has always been that the benefits for entering into a state marriage is to encourage heterosexual couples who might otherwise produce children outside of a marriage to get married, and thus increase the likelihood that any children they do produce will be produced within a marriage.
This is exactly the stated reason, in the source you provided for marriage benefits for TANF recipients. What more do you need?
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The same goes for a single father (which although more rare, does exist) who decides he's gay and wants to marry a male lover.
Yes. The state also no longer has any interest in him getting married since the states interest here is to reduce the rate of children born outside of marriage. I got that the first time.
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The same could even be said for an already gay couple who wishes to adopt a child.
Not a whole lot of TANF recipients are qualifying for adoption.
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In all three cases, there's no legitimate reason to deny the same benefits to such a couple should they fall on hard times.
No. You're not getting it. The stated reason isn't to reward people who have children for marrying. The stated reason is to reduce the likelihood of someone already on TANF from producing more children out of wedlock by providing benefits for marrying. You quoted and even bolded text that said precisely this. Let me requote it for you:
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Therefore, in light of this demonstration of the crisis in our Nation, it is the sense of the Congress that prevention of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and reduction in out-of-wedlock birth are very important Government interests and the policy contained in part A of title IV of the Social Security Act (as amended by section 103(a) of this Act) is intended to address the crisis
Note, they said "out of wedlock pregnancy" and "out of wedlock birth". They did not say "we want to reward people who already have children and who marry after the fact". The source very clearly and directly states that the goal is to get people to marry each other so that their future children will be born within a legally defined marriage.
That does not apply to gay couples. Hence, there's no state reason to extend this benefit to gay couples.
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This does not justify your argument that marriage is only for heterosexual child-bearing couples, nor does it preempt the legitimacy of any homosexual marriage at all.
Stick to the point. I'm not talking about "legitimacy". I'm talking about whether a given couple's relationship should qualify for state issued benefits. And the stated reason for the benefits in this law absolutely preclude granting them to non-child bearing couples.
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This particular benefit has everything to do with providing for children, and absolutely NOTHING to do with the marriage of two people who love each other, except to say that marriage increases the likelihood that a child will have the benefit of two parents, regardless of the sex of each parent.
Ok. But the whole point of this exercise wasn't to look at *what* the law does, but *why* it was passed. My claim is that the state creates benefits for marriage out of a desire to encourage couples who might otherwise produce children outside of wedlock to get married so that their children are produced inside wedlock. The stated reason for this particular law, as quoted by you, absolutely and perfectly supports my position.
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Try again.
I'm not surprised, but still somewhat disappointed that even in the face of absolute proof that my position is valid, you're still going to try to spin it away. Again, read the quoted part. It nearly exactly says the same positions I've been saying for years now, and which most posters on this forum have insisted isn't true. Well, there it is. And you can't refute the source because *you* provided it (thanks for that btw).
Just can't admit anything, can you?
Edited, Mar 9th 2012 7:06pm by gbaji