[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
- Are you insisting equally much that heterosexuals who choose to not be married to a person of the opposite sex not pay taxes or not get some major break? If not then you are being hypocritical.[/quote]
Let’s start by running this first question through a standard sentence machine.
This shouldn’t offend, because you can write, and you know it.
[quote]Babblefish returned:
- Are you advocating that unmarried heterosexuals get some major break or not pay taxes? If not then you are being hypocritical.[/quote]
My opinion is that the government should be powerless to offer incentives for social behavior, because it’s unfair and the entitlements are infinite. I am not an advocate for gay rights in any way that promotes an expansion of government.
The only thing I’ve promoted in this thread is the use of honest argument – clear as it may be at this point that I am an acquaintance of Dorothy.
As for the question, I’m not sure I get your meaning. There is a rationale behind offering certain tax considerations to families that are not also available to bachelors. Queer couplets are similar enough to hetero ones – nigh identical depending on the adoption policies – so it would be only fair to treat them that way under the law.
But I am not an advocate for this equalization, because it compromises my lovely solidarity.
[quote]2) If those arguing for these proposed laws would be straightforward and say that your purpose is to force employers and other persons to pay you more benefits than agreed to in the contracts you already agreed to, and to make the Federal government give you more money, rather than pretend it’s about “letting gays be married, why do you care what they do, isn’t it their business” then at least you’d be intellectually honest.
Oh but wait a second: couching it as to how you want more money from the government and from employers (above and beyond already-agreed pay) doesn’t get the sympathy votes the way it does to falsely pretend that you’re being prevented from having any relationship you want to have and it’s just about “letting” you do that.
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As I’ve pointed out, there are marital laws that place no further burden on the citizenry. Inheritance protocol, for example.
There was a story within the last decade – I think it eventually became a doco – about a couple of old cockatoos who lived on a ranch together for eons. When the one on the deed suddenly died without a will, his land and assets went by law to some estranged family member. I don’t know the details, and I’m sure there was a legal infrastructure in place that would have let them make preparations, but they just never bothered. This case was unfortunate because the wrongful heir to the ranch thought Judy was a drugged up trollop, had never approved of this sort of thing – thus the estrangement – and had the widower evicted. They had wanted to marry, which would have consolidated all that neglected legal procedure.
Similarly, there are family-only hospital scenarios and deferred emergency decisions.
I think that gay activists are spurred more by emotion and inequity than their own financial interests. Present one of them with an anecdote like the one above, and then mention how the language of the tax form or some worker’s contract isn’t designed with them in mind. They’ll run baying after the sob story every time. Not even with a reform in mind, just a chanting angry letter.
You’re right of course, that the end result channels money from taxpayers to gay couples and impositions a new definition of marriage into existing contracts, but this has nearly already happened, thanks to domestic partnership legislation. Once it becomes a semantic argument, I’ll strongly endorse a change of nomenclature and I assume that you will not. Until then, we’re on the same side and this is a precious mini-game.
[quote]3) Since you consider the term “breeders” to be appropriate for you to use when you mean heterosexuals, is it okay if on this forum we switch from using the terms gays or homosexuals to derogatorily saying butt burglars or perhaps ass pirates? Just wondering.
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I’d rather settle on something less traditional. Like cumjunkies, or firemen.
[quote]4) Agreed with Brother Chris.
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That’s the beauty of not viewing the government as your own personal sneakthief. If you disagree with someone, there’s nothing at stake and no mediating force that must be persuaded in your favor. In a universe with truly minimal government, drunks would still quibble over this stuff, and some citizens might even wish there were a marauding overlord who agreed with them, who could go and meddle with the pimps and honkies and preachers and opium sellers. But you and I and Brother Chris would be away on a picnic, despite our whiplash differences, because it is all by the wayside for those who have no desire to control others.
