Homosexual marriage debate: derail the money train
Political ·Tuesday March 10, 2009 @ 01:25 EDT (link)
This is a summary, with some removal of extraneous material, of a discussion in a certain "lively political forum." It started with criticism of Obama's choice of Rick Warren to pray at the inauguration (even though he sprinkled in a few nuttier choices too). As usual, names reduced to initials to protect the privacy of the participants.
PM: If [Warren] said the same things he does but about people of another race or religion, would you still say he's not a bigot? No, you'd be appalled that he called for denying equal citizenship to someone for being black, or Christian, or a woman. So how is it suddenly not bigotry because he says it about gay people?
CH: Here's the bottom line. Rick Warren claims to be a Christian. For most Christians, that means believing that the Bible is inerrant. Part of that inerrancy is that homosexuality is a sin, and not part of God's design for humanity. If we believe in free speech, and freedom of religion, does he not have the right to believe as he chooses?
PM: He can believe what he wants. … What he cannot do is claim that actively campaigning to deny a group of people equal protection under the law is anything but bigoted, and he cannot claim that his religion has any standing to take away the legal rights of an group of people just because he and his followers don't like them.
DR: Homosexual people have the same right as anyone else to marry someone of the opposite sex. The best way to get equality for all citizens would be to vote in a libertarian government. Then the government wouldn't be concerned about marriage.
PM: So you should have the right to marry someone you love because she happens to be of a different sex, but my brother shouldn't be allowed to marry the person he loves; he should just find a girl if he wants to get married?
DR: No, if he just cares about being married in the eyes of his friends and relatives: in that case he can find a church/coven/temple/whatever that will perform the ceremony. Religious marriage does not require the assent of government, although frequently they're combined.
Yes, if he wants to be married for purposes of government benefits, laws, etc. Then he runs against a specific legal definition, which does not include homosexual pairings.
Does he want to get "married" for the relationship, or for the government benefits? The people have decided against giving him the latter, but in a free country, nobody can stop the former. Many of the benefits (e.g. hospital visitation rights) can be arranged without marriage. As for tax benefits, the people have decided to rob the rest of us in many ways too, and it's frustrating, so I understand if he wants to be angry about it.
PM: But you don't have to make those special arrangement, why should he? Why should you get those government rights when he and his partner cannot? What makes you so much better than him that you should be allowed protections denied to him and his partner? I'd really like to know.
DR: Just like the government has decided that I should pay property taxes to support schools that I don't use, it has decided that homosexual couples (and other groups, friends, roommates, siblings, etc.) have to spend more money (time is money too) to get the benefits that heterosexual couples get (you could say it has decided to rob the public treasury and distribute largess to heterosexual couples, if you'd prefer). Every human being is eligible. The government has not decided to allow my best friend or my grandfather hospital visitation, either, or for me to sponsor them for a green card; is that offensive too? The "why" is that the people have decided. Perhaps it isn't fair, but the government has SWAT teams, tanks, and attack helicopters, so nobody's going to get "fair" until dawn breaks on Libertopia, and even then some people will complain. There's no "better" in either case of subsidy; they should both go away.
The legal definition is not all that matters. The religious and spiritual dimension is very important. If the government struck down all laws, regulations, and benefits mentioning marriage, would that estrange or separate those currently married? Of course not. The heart of marriage is the decision to love and honor and spend one's life with another person: government cannot add or subtract from that, although it can subsidize some of the costs.
PM: The religious and spiritual dimension may be important to you, but it's certainly not baked into the legal definition of marriage, otherwise atheists like my husband and me would not be allowed to marry. … The legal definition is all that matters. Churches can discriminate all they want; they have that right under the constitution. But the government does not have the right to deny certain classes of people rights that the rest get.
DR: Suppose the people (or at least their government, which ought to be the same thing) decided to force banks to give loans to minorities that shouldn't normally qualify (by various regulatory shenanigans including withholding consent for mergers). Is that racist or discriminatory?
PV: They did force banks, started with CRA and ACORN! A big part to the subprime financial mess and economic collapse. Way to go government!
DR: Yes. That comment was a little bit tongue-in-cheek.
Either it's wrong for government to discriminate economically for classes of people or it isn't. I say it is wrong: government should be out of the business of marriage (i.e. providing benefits for same) and of telling banks who they can loan money to and of taking money for schools from people without children in those schools and of collecting money and returning it to people of a certain age, and whole host of other things.
Individuals and private organizations are welcome to start groups to promote whatever they want: they can call their group "The Race" (meaning people like them) or "National Association for Advancement of People of My Skin Color" or "Stormfront" or "Gay Alliance"; and give money earned or donated to them to support whatever causes they want, including, say, giving $1000 to every homosexual couple that gets married if they so choose.
It's wrong for government to hand out money to classes of people is because it's theft (why should I as a married person be in any way subsidized by people who are not married?), not because it's undemocratic (see the "vote themselves largess from the public treasury" quote). If it's legitimate for private groups to hand out money to people of a certain skin color, why is it not legitimate for government to do the same? It's because the first is funded voluntarily, but the second is not. I understand that homosexual couples want to get on the government's handing-out-money train, but they need to get in line, or, better still, agitate for derailment of said train.
