If marriage is a right, then the government needs to start hooking people up

I can't totally take credit for this one because it came about in a discussion between Rob and me yesterday. Those discussions, if you were to read them, would often present a rather disturbing look inside our two brains.

Anyway, we both agree that gay marriage cannot be an equal rights issue for the simple reason that no one has a right to get married. Marriage is a union freely entered into between two parties. Gay or straight, no one can be married unless another person freely agrees to enter into the union with them. That means, by definition, marriage is not a right because a right is something that cannot be denied to you.

Otherwise all these single people who are looking but coming up empty could claim that their rights were being violated, and could petition the government for redress of their grievance. And the government would have to provide redress - if marriage were a right.

How would that work? Well, it was decided in Gideon v. Wainright (as highlighted in the book Gideon's Trumpet by Anthony Lewis, who just died a couple of days ago), that defendants in criminal cases have the right to an attorney. And if they lack the means or the methods by which to get their own, the government will provide one for them.

Same diff, right? Some might say the options available to you in the Office of the Public Defender are not as desirable as the lawyers you could get on your own if you had the money, but it's something. You rely on the government to provide you with what you need, you take what you can get.

So if marriage is a right, then the government will have to start hooking some people up via the Office of the Public Spouse. Now Rob and I think some guidelines are in order here. This is the government, after all. If you snare a mate via the Office of the Public Spouse:

1. No one gets a spouse that's too good looking. That's not fair to those who married homely people of their own volition.

2. No discrimination based on sex. That means you don't get to specify that your spouse must be male or must be female. You take what you can get. "You mean you're providing me with a dude to marry?" "What are you, a hater?"

3. No one brings up Ephesians 5:22. Ever. This is not some theocracy. Take that backwards, preachy crap to church and leave us out of it.

4. No vows, other than promising to avoid judgmentalism, to respect differentness and to be accepting of all choices, blah blah blah . . .

5. Everyone joins the government employee union. Not just the public spouses. You too. Solidarity!

The more I think about it, the more I think this really needs to happen. I will not rest until marriage is equal because government sees to it. Of course, I'm already happily married and my wife is a knockout. But I'm just looking out for you.

So true-—and their is no “Right” to sodomize others.....in fact, since it is a Vice and causes all sorts of health issues (and huge costs to society) and is closely related to child sexual abuse (all homosexual cultures had pederasty because it is a fixation in childhood), there should have laws preventing it.

True-—homosexuality is caused by child abuse so it is “sad” that people grow up and have this worldview which causes them to have emotions of desire when seeing others of their own sex.The object of lust is learned-—like baby rapers in Africa. You aren’t born with a desire to rape babies. It is absurd. It is learned by culture and environment. Relationships between your mother and father and you in formative years (0-7) determine how you perceive yourself, your sex and everyone around you. If you have no father-—you are stunted in your undererstanding of maleness and stunted in understanding what is normal behavior between men and women. (Your ideas will come from TV or other artificial sources and TV forces perversions and Vice). Children learn in the first five years of life—what “normal” is. if they have abusive parents-—then they learn to “fear” that person—and they transfer that “fear” to all men or all women.

How you treat little kids—determines their self-worth—how they “think” of themselves-—and if men reject their daughters or make fun of them physically-—they will grow up to hate men. it is a lot more nuanced than that-—since Natural Laws do aim sex in its mature form at the “other”—but fixation will prevent maturity and a flourishing of that person. Perversion will occur in abusive homes or ones that lack proper role models with the man/woman model so no sexism (like in homosexual Afghanistan where men hate women and prefer little boys and teach them to hate women) will occur.

.....but this cycle has to end—We need JUST LAWS which promote the Natural method (God’s Laws and Laws of Nature) and best scenario for children to grow up loving both male and female and so they have a natural sexual identity formation (not artificial or perverted one)-—otherwise, we will become a society of complete vice, where people use other human beings as a “means to an end” (commodifying human beings—selling babies) which is intrinsically EVIL and unconstitutional.

It is one of those “weird” rights that only exist if someone else lets you have it.

I used a somewhat similar argument regarding whether we should expect teens to be abstinent. I’ll get into the argument, and let the other side state categorically 4 or 5 times that it is insane to think that any teenager could reasonably expected NOT to have sex before they were 18, that it was just too much to ask, that it wasn’t normal, that it was imposing my religious beliefs, and that I was out of touch.

Then, I’d say something like, “OK, suppose I accept your hypothesis. What shall we do with the ugly fat guy with acne who smells bad?”. They’ll say “what do you mean?” And I’ll say, “well, you said we can’t expect ANY teen to go without sex, so what about UglyFatSmellyGuy?” And they’ll say “of course, him too”. And I’ll say “what if no woman will get near him — should we allow him to just pick one at random and rape her, or do we need to provide him a free hooker with his condom”?

Then they will complain that clearly they meant that no teen could be expected to not have sex IF they had a willing partner; and of course they thought people who couldn’t hook up should be abstinent.

And then I’d say “I guess ugly fat guys are just a lot better at self-control than you good-looking people, after all.”

There is no marriage benefit from the IRS.

There is a “Marriage Penalty” in the basic tax code, due to the fact that once married, you are treated as a family unit (whether you file jointly, or “married filing separately”). The earnings of the spouses are added together to determine the tax. This means that the entire 2nd spouse’s earnings are taxed at the tax rate as high or higher than the highest of the 1st spouse.

So, two people living together in the same house, sharing expenses, each with an adjusted income of $100,000, would pay $21,454, or $42,908 total on their $200,000.

But if those two were married, and with no separate tax tables, they would pay $200,000*0.33-$15472=$50,528.

With the marriage “relief”, they pay $200,000*0.28-12221=$43779.

Note that is about $800 more than if they filed separately.

Now, if only one spouse works, then the marriage tax rates seem to help — except if you were two single people, and one of you made no money, the one making no money would likely be on assistance, getting food stamps, if they had a small amount of earnings they could actually get the earned income tax credit. So it is quite possible that what they received from the government would make up for the extra tax the earning part of the couple made.

Now, you are correct that social security is one of the big pots. Although if you had similar earnings, it will likely work out that getting your own SS will pay more than getting half of the other earner. Again, if only one earns, you could make out better.

Most companies now offer domestic partner coverage for insurance, and for pensions, so that isn’t really an issue with gay marriage (and I think Obamacare requires it). And I never really considered the death tax thing, although that would only matter if you had more than $5 million, since you can pass that much on tax-free to anybody.

And for most other things, you can legally set up a financial coupling.

I really don’t think it is about money. I think the money is a false reason given to make us think it is “unfair”. I think it is simply that gays want to be fully accepted as normal, they want everyone to be forced not to tolerate them, but to actively support them.

I also think gays do want to own kids (and I mean “own kids” — it isn’t just gays either, there are people who look on kids as another thing to “have”, not as obligations to love and nurture). And it is easier to own kids if you get to steal “marriage”. This is how some lesbian in Vermont got to take custody of some other woman’s child, even though she had no biological attachment to the kid. Because the mother stupidly got “married” in Vermont to this lesbian, and then realised she wasn’t a lesbian, and wanted to get a husband, and then didn’t like what the lesbian was teaching her child.

This is what I think they want. To have ownership of children, and acceptance and support for their lifestyle.

Imagine if addiction to smoking was treated like addiction to same-sex attraction. Both are considered to have genetic components. But if smoking was treated like gays, not only would there be no tax on cigarettes, but people who were mean about smoke would be attacked, bans on smoking would turn into pushes to have buildings designed to help smokers, and we’d be teaching our children to tolerate and support their smoking buddies, rather than turning them off to smoke.

And oddly, smoking probably is less likely to harm your health than active male gay sex. (I am not sure there is a particular medical harm to typical lesbian “sex”).

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.