Quote:
Originally posted by Lokrian
It is about what real interest the government has in giving incentives for homosexuals to cohabit whether or not they intend to start any family.
What incentives? I mean, does anyone really look at child tax credits and say, "Whoah! That's a pretty fucking awesome deal! I think I'll go out and get married and have kids right away!"
Quote:
Tell me, why do you need to be able to stay home and be kept on your spouses insurance?
Huh? Who said anything about staying at home?
Quote:
Why can you not just work and take care of your situation like any other set of roomates who have no intention of having children but are just sharing expenses?
I could be wrong, but I'm assuming you're not married. Legal marriage carries a tremendous number of benefits that just being roommates does not. Many of which have nothing to do with whether or not there are children in the picture. If I buy a piece of property and later die, my wife maintains ownership of it without having to go to court to prove to the state that it should be hers. If I am hospitalized for some reason, she can visit me without me first having to sign a document giving her permission to do so. If my company offers a health plan for families, she is included even if they choose not to recognize "domestic partners." In most states it will be cheaper for she and I to share insurance policies on our cars than it would if we were not legally married.
Quote:
Why do you deserve tax breaks I can't have unless I get married to someone who might actually get pregnant and we end up having a financial burden and have real need of extra help to stabalize the family?
What tax breaks? The only significant tax breaks I get are for having a child (and those come nowhere close to making up for the actual cost of raising said child). A gay couple without children, just like a straight couple without children, are never going to see these tax breaks.
Quote:
Why at the very least are you not willing to show some interest in actually having children first before you get legal benefits designed for the sake of benefiting those who are likely to have children and need those arrangements to help raise them?
Again, there are plenty of benefits associated with legal marriage that have NOTHING to do with trying to raise children. Marriage, as a legal institution, is no longer just about child rearing.
Quote:
You'd end up just taking money out of the system that needs to be reserved to those who have an actual need for it.
Bullshit. He'd end up keeping money that is rightfully his to begin with.
Quote:
Is that what you want, or have you even thought about that? Do you even acknowledge that there are a lot of gay couples who don't want children?
Yet we don't force straight couples to prove that the are willing and/or capable of having children before we let them marry. Why a different standard for gay couples?
Quote:
More likely, money will be syphoned off to people who will never have children and who never wanted to to begin with. Basically, why does money need to be spent on making sure that gay people get breaks and incentives that no one else is elligible for?
What ARE you talking about?
Quote:
Why is it that these family law issues aren't being looked at as FAMILY law issues? What is so special about being gay? Why is it that any question of the relevance of this sort of legislation is immediately labeled religious or hateful or prejudice, and no discussion about the fundamental issues of family and child rearing are allowed to be included in the debate?
But it is the people opposed to gay marriage who seem to think there is something special about being gay. And, let's face it, with a bunch of morons running around shouting stupid shit like "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," without drawing the censure of their political bedfellows on this matter, is it so surprising that such a position seems to be rooted largely in prejudice?
Quote:
Homosexuals simply do not have that problem. For a homosexual to have children, they have to be doing something besides living together and having sex.
This is also true of 1 and 6 straight couples as well who, at the very least, will require some sort of medical assistance in order to have children.
Quote:
No one cares about the real consequences of this, just as no one cared about the real consequences of destroying traditional values regarding sex and marriage.
What are these traditional values? The only truly enduring tradition of marriage is that it generally conforms itself to the needs of society. I think marriage as a legal institution, no fault divorces and all, is doing just fine, and I don't see why we should pull out our hair just because some people are complete fuckups and would remain so no matter how many years back in time we were to go for our model of the ideal marriage.
Quote:
Hopefully, but I dount it, given the entirel lack of conscience or any sort of sense of self discipline or responsibility in the US today.
Oh, yay, I get to take a role I'm not often seen taking on these boards. I get to leap to the defense of America!:fence If we are in such an appalling social state today and suffer from an entire lack of conscience or self-discipline or responsibility, how is it that we manage to remain the economic and military powerhouse that we are? I mean, I'm not exactly a member of what anyone would consider the priviliged class. Yet, when I look around at my neighbors or my co-workers or my friends or back at the people I went to school with or served time in the Army with, most of them seem to have the whole conscience, self-discipline, responsibility thing down pretty well, even the moral relativists and the humanists and the atheists and the [insert any standard religious right codeword for people who supposedly fail to give proper deference to the virtues that would make America great]. Granted, there are some exceptions, but they are that -- exceptions.
