SCOTUS, Hilary and Same Sex MarriageFollow

I think that if a couple gets married and does not procreate within say, three years, they should be forced to adopt a child or have their marriage benefits revoked.

Which explains why the members of the partnership might want to enter into it, but I'm asking why the state would provide benefits for those who enter into the status. That's a different question. I'm asking why a parent would pay a child an allowance, not why the allowance would benefit the child. Answer the question I'm asking.

Because that's what the people want; well assuming it is what they want of course.

Ok then. Why do the people vote for representatives who then pass laws, which create these benefits for those who enter into the status? And saying "cause it benefits the people in the status" isn't a good answer because there would be no reason to create the status in the first place, just give the benefits to everyone. Clearly, at some point, the people decided that there was some need for a spouse to receive the higher value of the social security benefits between themselves and their spouse if their spouse passes away. Why do this and not just let anyone designate someone else to qualify for their benefits if/when they die?

Wanna bet? EDIT: not court records, but how about written into the law itself?



Because it's my argument.



Depends what the objective is. You are correct that if the objective is for the government to just give people things cause they're nice, we should stop doing that. I guess what I'm getting at is that I argue this issue this way because the rationale I ascribe is the only one I accept as legitimate. It's the only reason why I would be ok with the government creating such a status and the attendant benefits in the first place. Thus, only conditions which match that criteria would be considered legitimate targets for the status in my mind. You're absolutely correct that if we expand it to other groups, in my mind, there's no reason to keep the status at all.


Maybe this will explain my thinking: Imagine you and I are buying a car together. I want a car that gets good gas mileage and you want one that is blue. So we find a blue car that gets good gas mileage and both agree that we'll split the cost for the car because it fits both our needs. Then we decide we need a new car and you argue we should buy a big blue SUV because it's blue and meets your criteria. I look at the mpg and say "no way, it's a gas guzzler!". The fact that I agreed to split the cost of a blue car the last time around does not mean that I must agree to split the cost of a blue car this time around. This is because my criteria and yours are different. But it seems like whenever we talk about gay marriage, the arguments I run into are the equivalent of "but you paid for a blue car last time". Um... That's not the criteria I'm using to make the determination.

Edited, Mar 29th 2013 4:26pm by gbaji

It's clearly discrimination, that's not at question. The question is, why is the discrimination justified?

Group B only exists because you defined Group A exclusively.

Clearly, at some point, the people decided that there was some need for a spouse to receive the higher value of the social security benefits between themselves and their spouse if their spouse passes away. Why do this and not just let anyone designate someone else to qualify for their benefits if/when they die?

They do. Children qualify, even adopted ones who didn't benefit from the procreation encouraged by Marriage benefits. Why can't people designate any child? Oh, right, that's an idiotic fucking question I was trying to pass of as some sort of novel thought experiment that makes no sense unless I want to discriminate against children.

But the status in your mind discriminates. There's no rational reason that a family unit, in order to fit into the little economic niche that we created for them by law and by practice, has to be headed by a man and a woman. You can't give one. Time and again you've failed at it.

You'd essentially be willing to write off the traditional family unit if it can't only include a family headed by a man and a woman?

Another good question. Do the historical reasons the state was involved still make sense in today's society? Enough so to warrant involvement to this degree?

And you're also leaping past the question to the next step instead of stopping and answering it. You seem to want to get to the answer you've already decided is the right one instead of actually taking all the steps required to get there.

In order to make that determination you'd also need to know what the purpose is. That's why I keep saying this is important.

What is the purpose of the state status? If you can't answer that, you can't really have an intelligent position on the issue of gay marriage.

Edited, Mar 29th 2013 5:47pm by gbaji

I'm saying I can't really to see a relevant reason. The reasons you've listed so far don't seem to be sufficient in my mind to keep the man+woman distinction (in the eyes of the state) without extending too two people regardless of sex, and I can't think of any good reasons on my own.

Care to help?

Really we have child tax credits already to encourage people to have kids if that's what the state wants. Birth control and the general changing of social values over the years have reduced the weight of traditional arguments for marriage. Marriage doesn't seem to last like it used to anyway. So why do we need to keep with an outdated model? If we aren't going to change it to meet our current needs why do we need the government there at all? Just make everything the equivalent of a civil union in the state's eyes?[/i]

Edited, Mar 29th 2013 6:25pm by someproteinguy

Which doesn't answer the question I asked. I know we've discussed it ad nauseum, but I'm still waiting for someone to tell me why the state is involved in the first place. I'm not asking for the details of the involvement, but why it's involved. What purpose does it serve?



Again, you are answering "what", but I asked "why?". Why get involved? What was broken/missing in society that required that the state (at any level) involve itself in marriage?



For purposes of federally defined benefits. And what DOMA does isn't in question. Why it does it, and whether that why matches with the why of the marriage status it applies to kinda does.



Hard to say. It's a valid question to ask. What he's asking is whether there's some quality of "traditional marriage" (meaning a man and woman) that matches the intended purpose of the estate tax provision or was it just convenient. I happen to think, whether overtly stated or not, that it was some quality of male/female marriages which was the target. If it was just a convenient target for unified economic units, then why bother with it in the first place? It would be easier to just say that you can designate anyone as your heir and avoid taxes (in other words, eliminate the death tax). Why apply this to a spouse, but not any random person one designates?

The answer would presumably be that there's some quality or criteria for "spouse" that is not met by "any random person I designate, or a roommate". The next question becomes "what is that quality or criteria"? And that brings us back to the question of what the state is trying to accomplish with marriage. Specifically, why might we want to exempt an estate from taxation if there's a surviving spouse? If you have two people, both with equal likelihood of working, and nothing specific to their relationship which might preclude one from being able to advance their career versus the other, then there's no reason to allow one to hand their property to the other tax free than it would be for one to hand that property over tax free to any other random person they want to.

Hmm.... If the two had a child together, and were married, we can presume that one of them likely had their career opportunities impacted as a result. So it makes sense to allow them to share the fruits of the career focused spouse in terms of pension, health insurance, and estate to a degree greater than any other random friend. Surely, some could take advantage of that and get married purely for the financial benefits. A young woman marrying an elderly man in order to inherit his estate without having to pay taxes. It happens. Similarly, someone might wish to adopt a child, or otherwise becomes a single parent, and would like to define someone else as co-guardian without meeting the traditional requirements for marriage. That happens too. But do we make our rules based on the potential for exceptions, or based on the most common occurrences? I think the latter.

There's a lot more I could write on this, but that's enough, and honestly it's late on a Friday, and I want to head home. So have a nice weekend, and eat some eggs and candy! ;)



I'm not tailoring my answer based on what Alito may have said, if that's what you're thinking. My answer is my answer. I don't need to chooses it. It's already there. My challenge is writing it out so that others understand where I'm coming from.

Yeah, I'm sure you could write more - you have. You've given valid reasons for having an estate tax provisions for married couples, but failed to give a reason why a same sex couple should be excluded. They own homes together, share property, insure one another, raise kids together, they have their career opportunities impacted by one another, etc.........

Really gbaji, you can't rationalize this without declaring yourself a bigot. You simply refuse to acknowledge that two people of the same sex can chose to live their lives together in the very same manner that differing sexes can. Not from a purely legal standpoint. There's only religion left and homophobia left.

If anything, it would be an economic boon to allow same sex spouses all the same rights and responsibilities of opposing sex spouses. I mean, as it stands now, if a lesbian couple can't get legally married, but still has a child together, the non-birthing parent has no legal responsibility for that child. If the birth mother dies or is found unfit the other parent has no rights or responsibilities. If the couple should simply divorce, no child support needs is mandated, no visitation rights for the non-birth parent. It's ludicrous.

Let it go. Come Out if that's what you need to do and find a partner to share your life with. Straight people are not more able to contribute to the welfare of our society than gay people. White people are not better than other colors and men are not superior to women. ...and the children are all above average.

edit - i dont feel like correcting all my typos right now.




Edited, Mar 30th 2013 4:42am by Elinda