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Originally Posted by Panache  A "couple" is not a citizen. The government grants priviliges to citizens based solely on marital status. Those whose marital status is "married" are first class citizens, while those whose marital status is "unmarried" are second class citizens. |
Since when do tax incentives determine what class of citizen you are? Does this mean that people who receive tax incentives for donations are a different class of citizens than those that don't/can't donate enough? CC mentioned earlier in this thread some possible societal benefits of marriage (with or without children), such as financial responsibility. The marriage as a contract benefits the couple in that it takes care of many legal issues with one document. Is there some other benefit that the government gives that I don't know about?
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My position is simply that marital status is as arbitrary a consideration as gender or eye colour, so I find it hard to sympathise with the poor gays being discriminatated against, when I am being equally discriminated against myself.
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But you are not being discriminated against in that marriage is a contract between 2 people and the government and is believed to be beneficial to society. Since you are just one person, then you do not meet the qualifications to enter into that contract.
A proper analogy would be <hypothetical situation> the government has a license for carpool groups and the groups get a tax incentive for their benefit to the environment. The qualifying factors that make a carpool group eligible for a license are 2 or more specific people, only one car registered to all the people in the group, and they are all of the same gender (this one is there by tradition). Now Joe comes along and says well I car pool sometimes but with different people every day and we each have our own cars. Joe doesn't meet the specific requirements laid out by the government to get the license and the tax incentive. It is not discriminatory because it is Joe's choice not to meet the fair requirements. Now say that Joe actually did get a group together and they get a car. But the group is 2 men and 2 women. Joe's group is being discriminated against here because there is no good reason to not allow mixed gender carpool groups.
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How can an amendement stating that marriage is between one many and one woman be interpereted any other way?
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Amendments can be repealed. Remember prohibition.
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I do not have the rights already, as I will address shortly.
gay people are discriminated against based on marital status the same way all other singles are. Why should I care that two men who love each other are limited to having the same rights that I as an unmarried straight man have? What reason should I have to believe that they should be entitled to rights that I am not simply because they are having sex with each other?
It also discriminates based on marital status. I am just as discriminated against as a gay couple is.
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As in the situation above, you are not being discriminated against at all because you could choose to meet the fair criteria for the marriage license if you were willing to give up your single status to enter into a marriage contract with another person. Your argument falls short because there are at least some small perceived benefits to society for any two unrelated people to be married vice being single. If you could prove that this isn't the case, then you might be able to abolish marriage, but most likely not. The gay couple is not being discriminated against for their marital status or sexual orientation even, but rather their sex. If one of them were a different sex, then they could be married. Just like in the example I gave with Joe, if they were all of the same sex, then they could get the license. But is the fact that the rules insist that they have to meet certain gender criteria fair to begin with? Is there really some extra advantage to society for having all carpools one gender? Just like in the gay marriage issue, is there any extra benefit to society to have
all marriages heterosexual?
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That is beside the point though. Competance in the medical feild is not an arbitrary means of discriminating. Marital status is an arbitrary means of discriminating, as giving special goodies to citizens of a certain marital status serves no legitimate function. You might as well just tell left handed people that they don't have to pay taxes anymore.
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The government disagrees with you that marriage serves no legitimate function. They believe that marriages give some benefit to society as a whole, otherwise why would they even bother to give those "goodies" to married couples? Marriages are done by choice. Left-handedness is something a person is born with, so making lefties tax-free would be discrimination against right handed people. The tax benefits are an incentive to get married and take, at least, partial financial responsibility for your spouse.
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Men and women are both given equal goodies for being married, and are both allowed to become married. The criteria to become married in order to recieve arbitrarily preferential treatment is only as arbitrary as the privilege of marriage itself.
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Men and women who choose to marry the opposite sex are treated equally, but those who wish to marry someone of the same gender are being discriminated against. The contract of marriage is the benefit to society, not the abilities of who it is made between. Therefore, it is discrimination to not allow same sex marriage, just like it was discrimination in my example above to not allow mixed-gender carpools.
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That is my point. The rights are granted relative to a SPOUSE, because the marital status of a spouse is "married" whereas the marital status of a single person is "unmarried." That is in fact the only difference between a spouse and a single person.
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Except that the "married" part is considered to be a benefit to society worthy enough for a tax break, very much like paying college tuition and/or giving a lot of money to charity. Each of these are seen to have a benefit to our society, therefore, people are being encouraged to do them with these tax incentives.
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Do I have to pay inheritance tax if my best friend dies and includes me in his will? Do I have to pay inheritance tax if my grandpa dies? Why is my relationship with my grandpa judged to be inferior to your relationship with your spouse? What function does that serve other than to arbitrarily shift the taxpayer burden to us second class citizens so that the married elite don't have to pull their own weight?
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There is a slight difference when it comes to property rights in marriage because it is assumed with said marriage that you have agreed to share the property. This means that the property was technically partially the spouses anyway. While is your grandpa or friend or other relative died, and left you anything, then it was not in any way yours until they bequeathed it to you. Presumably, you did not help pay for or make whatever those other relatives/friends left you because then they probably wouldn't have left it to you in their will, you could have just taken it.
Do I have special rights with regard to my home if my roomate gets gravely ill? My roomate and I cohabit the same way a married couple does, does the fact that we aren't swapping genital juices make our relationship less valid?
If the government is going to have the authority to arbirtarily decide which relationships are valid and which ones are not, I see no reason why gay couples should fall in the "valid" catagory rather than "invalid" catagory with me and my roomate.
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Of course if I had my way, the validity of a relationship would be determined by the people actually involved in the relationship, rather than by the government, but maybe thats just me. |
Anyone can claim that they have a high school diploma, but until they show that diploma how do you know they're telling the truth? The same goes for marriage, especially when dealing with finances and legal issues. How does the woman at the insurance company know that you are eligible for the "married" discount unless you have a marriage certificate to show her? (My husband got this discount and the girl said it was because they believed that married men drive a lot less recklessly than single men.)
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If I want those rights to apply to an opposite sex platonic partner whose marital status is single, I run into the same discrimination.
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Can you show how having that opposite sex platonic partner without being married benefits society? If you can, then you should write your representative(s) to push for an incentive to give you and your partner tax incentives. (Although I'd bet that they'd just advise you to get married since that would be the easiest way to get such incentives.
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If I want those rights to apply to my sister, or my best friend or my tenents or my investment partners, or my uncle, or my barber, I run into the same discrimination. By what criteria is my relationship with any of the above judged to be inferior or less deserving of privilege than that of a married couple?
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You can get most marital rights to apply to whomever you choose, but unless you are able and plan to marry the person, you will have to do so through a lawyer. It may take more paperwork than the marriage license but you're the one who chose not to get married so that these could be taken care of with one document.
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