my solution to the gay marriage argument

[Inso0]

The intent of the law was to promote families(I.E. people having children).

At the time the law was written, I'm sure they didn't consider that in the year 2007, we'd have widespread single parent households and that homosexuals would be demanding a complete re-write of our civil liberties laws.

So they wrote it to cover the people who would be most likely to be affected by it. Married couples.

Well, now gays are trying to re-write the marriage laws to include themselves. Fine. Whatever. But the law of unintended consequences means that all these things that were intended for heterosexual married couples will now be granted to a huge segment of the population for which they were NOT intended for.

You have two options:

Government recognizes gay marriage as "legal" and you do away with some laws that are pretty much hard coded into society. You then probably have to draft new laws (or not? please?) to reincorporate only that segment of the population to whom you intended to grant benefits to. (People raising families)

or

The path of least resistance, you tell gays that they can't get married.

The public has thus far chosen the latter.

[elwoodblues]

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The non-financial benefits (and many that are financially related) can all be taken care of WITHOUT government involvement.


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No, they can't. The first one off the top of my head: There is a spousal privilege wherein one spouse cannot be called to testify against the other. This cannot be done via simple contract.

While it is true that a gay couple can create a will to bequest property to the other upon death, the BENEFIT to married couples is that they don't need to.

[Inso0]

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Seems to me it would be hard to take care of a generation that doesn't exist.

I assume we're still talking about gay couples having children...

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No. You are the only one making such assumptions. That's not what I'm talking about. Use your imagination and think things through and you might realize that there is more to a generation succeeding then just people giving birth.

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But you can't have one without the other.

I'm not understanding what you're trying to say. If you're trying to say that gay couples are capable of raising a child, then I don't disagree with you. But that hasnt been what this is about.

Should read my last post, imo.

[kurto]

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Thats actually not my stated goal, but see my response to Elwood vis a vis the extension of benefits to gay adoptees.

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Sorry, I haven't read your previous volumes on the subject and just lumped you in with everybody else in this thread who's obsessed with propagation of the species like we're about to go extinct.

So you're pro-gay marriage if children are involved. And you're willing to look past some "dead weight" of married hetero couples without children, but not [censored] ones without children? Isn't it getting fairly nitty to remain against gay marriage in this case?

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I suppose you could get away with calling it nitty, I wont be offended. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] I'm willing to accept that deadweight loss because its too hard to combat it. However, basic sense tells us that a married homosexual couple is much less likely to have children than a heterosexual couple. In fact, the definitely wont unless they take extraordinary means to do so. Once they commit themselves to that path than I'm willing to extend the benefits.

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btw- When I was reading up on the misinformation spouted earlier by inso... where studies had confirmed that gay couples raising kids didn't change the likelihood that a child would be gay... I saw some surprising statistic. The number of gay parents (either through adoption or having a child) was very high. Much higher then I expected. My point being that gay people are raising a lot more children then probably most of us realize. If I wasn't about to catch a train soon I'd do some research.

[InTheDark]

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I dont mind discussion but I'm not keen on getting called a bigot. Im actually sort of surprised that kurto went down that since the two of us have had good discussion in the past (on this very issue).

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I didn't call you a bigot. You are not one who is continuing to use the code that "you are correct because you suscribe to the values that the country is founded on"... And, throughout the thread I have given measured responses and posted information supporting my views. I have gone back to two specific posters over and over again looking for concrete reasons why they're singling out gays and get responses based on values and such. And I'm labeled 'liberal' as if that diminishes my argument.

If the entire argument was "let's remove marriage benefits because it bloats the government and increases taxes" then there would be no argument. But the people I was addressing are only intent on denying rights to gays.

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No, you called me a bigot in lieu of argument. Then he protests and 'forgets' to quote the portion of the post where he calls me a bigot. Buh bye.

[Inso0]

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The non-financial benefits (and many that are financially related) can all be taken care of WITHOUT government involvement.


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No, they can't. The first one off the top of my head: There is a spousal privilege wherein one domestic companion cannot be called to testify against the other. This cannot be done via simple contract.

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So change the verbage in the law?

[kurto]

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But you can't have one without the other.

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It doesn't matter. We're not discussing simply who can have babies. You said that the government has an interest in promoting the success of future generations. Giving birth to children is only one small part in promoting the success of a future generation. Gay people have always contributed to society and its general welfare. Giving birth is not the end-all be-all sucess of a generation.

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I'm not understanding what you're trying to say. If you're trying to say that gay couples are capable of raising a child, then I don't disagree with you. But that hasnt been what this is about.


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Well... it is ONE factor of what its about if you're arguing about factors that could lead to the success of future generations.

[kurto]

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No, you called me a bigot in lieu of argument. Then he protests and 'forgets' to quote the portion of the post where he calls me a bigot. Buh bye.

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Its your contention that I (and others) haven't posted numerous arguments. Its the fact that you guys keep changing what you say to where it becomes rathar obvious that you simply have a problem with gays.

[elwoodblues]

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The non-financial benefits (and many that are financially related) can all be taken care of WITHOUT government involvement.


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No, they can't. The first one off the top of my head: There is a spousal privilege wherein one spouse cannot be called to testify against the other. This cannot be done via simple contract.

While it is true that a gay couple can create a will to bequest property to the other upon death, the BENEFIT to married couples is that they don't need to.

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Just to clarify...ultimately the issue is that beyond the tangible financial benefits are intangible benefits (intestate distribution, medical decisions, etc.) There is a benefit to heterosexual married couples that costs society nothing (they get the benefits without having the costs associated with drafting a document.) It is not okay to say that gay couples get the same benefits when they have to pay for them. That would be like saying that (in a hypothetical world where black kids were excluded from public schools) that it isn't a big deal because black kids can go to private schools.

The response of at least on in this thread would seem to be I don't like any pubic shools. Therefore the only two options are get rid of all public schools or keep the discriminatory ones in place. Either way, I'm fine with that.