Polls on Same-Sex Marriage State Laws

[Joe Republic]

It is actually rather refreshing to see CARL taking the radically reactionary position on an issue other than immigration for once.

Why the apostrophes, CARL?

There's a a quotation attributed to Abraham Lincoln that asserts that calling a tail a leg is simply false.

'Gay marriage' is a definitional falsity.

How so?

Still waiting for an answer to this.  How is the term 'gay marriage' invalid, CARL?

[milhouse24]

I think Marriage certificates should be given to pregnant women in order to compel their Male Lovers to provide child support. 

In any other instance of marriage besides pregnancy, is a superficial and unnecessary government intrusion meant to prevent men from screwing around and protect outdated monogamy. 

As a general health issue, anal intercourse is dangerous and has higher rates of HIV and STD transmission.  If the government should regulate anything, it should outlaw anal intercourse and place anal intercourse as sodomy. 

[memphis]

I think Marriage certificates should be given to pregnant women in order to compel their Male Lovers to provide child support. 

You want to force people into marriage? Just FYI, if two people are married, then there's typically no need for child support. It's when they're not married that you typically see court orders forcing men (and very rarely women) to pay child support.
While we're dictating our desires for legalities and parenthood, I very much want to see a mandatory DNA test before any man can be listed as a father on a birth certificate. I don't care if the couple is married or not. Men have a right to know, and having to ask for such a delicate thing is an undue burden.

[milhouse24]

I think Marriage certificates should be given to pregnant women in order to compel their Male Lovers to provide child support. 

You want to force people into marriage? Just FYI, if two people are married, then there's typically no need for child support. It's when they're not married that you typically see court orders forcing men (and very rarely women) to pay child support.
While we're dictating our desires for legalities and parenthood, I very much want to see a mandatory DNA test before any man can be listed as a father on a birth certificate. I don't care if the couple is married or not. Men have a right to know, and having to ask for such a delicate thing is an undue burden.

I'm sure there are financial benefits to legalized gay unions, but I don't know them right now?
Basically, marriage is a financial contract between the 2 spouses, and in the event of a divorce the richer spouse pays alimony to the poorer spouse. 
Personally, I think freedom is being able to do whatever you want away from government regulation, that can be screwing many women or screwing as many men as you want.
However, marriage becomes a convenient government contract when it comes to regulating the responsibilities for biological children.  The traditional reasoning for a marriage contract was financial arrangement and a sexual arrangement, leading to the birth of biological offspring, which the birth parents are legally bound to care and provide for.  I don't really care if straight or gay couples want to live in monogamy, with or without government oversight.  But I do want to legally strengthen the laws regarding biological parenthood and responsibility.  For instance, in the black community, black fathers don't take financial responsibility for their children and have many children out of wedlock.  This is perhaps freedom at its finest display. 
However, the government has a legal interest and legal authority to make sure every child is financially provided for.  It might not change anything in black culture, but I would like to see a marriage certificate as a default obligation to common-law marriages with children. 

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What I find most amusing of CARL's denial of the trend here is he once tried to argue there was a "trend" toward the Republicans in a congressional special election because the Republican candidate got more votes than a Republican did in the previous election...where the Republicans received zero votes because there was no Republican candidate.

[Verily]

I think Marriage certificates should be given to pregnant women in order to compel their Male Lovers to provide child support. 

You want to force people into marriage? Just FYI, if two people are married, then there's typically no need for child support. It's when they're not married that you typically see court orders forcing men (and very rarely women) to pay child support.
While we're dictating our desires for legalities and parenthood, I very much want to see a mandatory DNA test before any man can be listed as a father on a birth certificate. I don't care if the couple is married or not. Men have a right to know, and having to ask for such a delicate thing is an undue burden.

I'm sure there are financial benefits to legalized gay unions, but I don't know them right now?
Basically, marriage is a financial contract between the 2 spouses, and in the event of a divorce the richer spouse pays alimony to the poorer spouse. 

Married couples are taxed preferentially to unmarried couples in the income tax, particularly if they have disparate incomes (if one is a stay-at-home parent). Additionally, married couples are entitled to increases in certain child support and other family government credits (generally also in their tax payments/refunds). Additionally, there are no estate taxes on transfers between spouses (only applicable to about 0.1% of the population, but still), and no gift taxes on transfers within the marital unit, taxes that unmarried couples must pay.

Furthermore, there are a raft of other, less tangibly economic benefits like hospital visitation rights that are extended to spouses and not to unmarried couples.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The social conservative butthurt on this issue is hilarious. I only wish we had more issues like this to piss them off

http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/first-time-majority-americans-favor-legal-gay-marriage.aspx

Obama has been several points less popular than gay marriage for months now.

[Stranger in a strange land]

The social conservative butthurt on this issue is hilarious. I only wish we had more issues like this to piss them off

http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/first-time-majority-americans-favor-legal-gay-marriage.aspx

Obama has been several points less popular than gay marriage for months now.

Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, the War in Afghanistan, the Tea Party, and Occupy Wall Street are all less popular than gay marriage.

[milhouse24]

I think Marriage certificates should be given to pregnant women in order to compel their Male Lovers to provide child support. 

You want to force people into marriage? Just FYI, if two people are married, then there's typically no need for child support. It's when they're not married that you typically see court orders forcing men (and very rarely women) to pay child support.
While we're dictating our desires for legalities and parenthood, I very much want to see a mandatory DNA test before any man can be listed as a father on a birth certificate. I don't care if the couple is married or not. Men have a right to know, and having to ask for such a delicate thing is an undue burden.

I'm sure there are financial benefits to legalized gay unions, but I don't know them right now?
Basically, marriage is a financial contract between the 2 spouses, and in the event of a divorce the richer spouse pays alimony to the poorer spouse. 

Married couples are taxed preferentially to unmarried couples in the income tax, particularly if they have disparate incomes (if one is a stay-at-home parent). Additionally, married couples are entitled to increases in certain child support and other family government credits (generally also in their tax payments/refunds). Additionally, there are no estate taxes on transfers between spouses (only applicable to about 0.1% of the population, but still), and no gift taxes on transfers within the marital unit, taxes that unmarried couples must pay.

Furthermore, there are a raft of other, less tangibly economic benefits like hospital visitation rights that are extended to spouses and not to unmarried couples.

I suppose its okay for gay couples to use the government marriage licenses for financial gain and personal gain, even though I don't see the point of gay marriage oversight.  The reason those marriage laws and marriage benefits exist are to protect the rights of unemployed housewives.  In theory, both gay spouses have the ability to work if they don't have children.  Even if gay spouses have children, the biological parents must pay child support under federal laws.  I don't think gay couples should get tax breaks and skip out of federal and state taxes when those taxes are needed to actually help biological families with biological children for things such as public schools. 

The purpose of these marriage laws are to benefit families with children, and to help households financially support and physically care for underage children.  There is no logical reasoning for gay couples to use government loopholes to cheat the government out of tax dollars and sap financial support to biological families that actually benefit from tax breaks. 

[Verily]

I think Marriage certificates should be given to pregnant women in order to compel their Male Lovers to provide child support.  

You want to force people into marriage? Just FYI, if two people are married, then there's typically no need for child support. It's when they're not married that you typically see court orders forcing men (and very rarely women) to pay child support.
While we're dictating our desires for legalities and parenthood, I very much want to see a mandatory DNA test before any man can be listed as a father on a birth certificate. I don't care if the couple is married or not. Men have a right to know, and having to ask for such a delicate thing is an undue burden.

I'm sure there are financial benefits to legalized gay unions, but I don't know them right now?
Basically, marriage is a financial contract between the 2 spouses, and in the event of a divorce the richer spouse pays alimony to the poorer spouse.  

Married couples are taxed preferentially to unmarried couples in the income tax, particularly if they have disparate incomes (if one is a stay-at-home parent). Additionally, married couples are entitled to increases in certain child support and other family government credits (generally also in their tax payments/refunds). Additionally, there are no estate taxes on transfers between spouses (only applicable to about 0.1% of the population, but still), and no gift taxes on transfers within the marital unit, taxes that unmarried couples must pay.

Furthermore, there are a raft of other, less tangibly economic benefits like hospital visitation rights that are extended to spouses and not to unmarried couples.

I suppose its okay for gay couples to use the government marriage licenses for financial gain and personal gain, even though I don't see the point of gay marriage oversight.  The reason those marriage laws and marriage benefits exist are to protect the rights of unemployed housewives.

This isn't true. Households in which both spouses work receive equal benefits.

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This is also true of straight spouses.

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This is false. Biological parents do not have to pay child support, and very few same-sex couples with children receive any kind of child support from biological parents. Most same-sex couples with children either adopted those child or had them through surrogates, where child support is not an issue. Among those few who did not, almost none receive child support.

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If the point is to subsidize schools, couples without children should pay more taxes regardless of marital status or orientation. That would be arguable (probably idiotic as policy, but internally consistent), but it is not the current system, nor remotely resembling it.

Furthermore, many of the policies I cited, like the estate tax and gift tax, are benefits designed for internal support between spouses rather than support of children. Federal law treats married couples as a single legal unit, regardless of whether they have children or not. The support of children is not even a factor in gift or estate tax. Gifts to children are tax-free regardless as they are considered "support", so no gift tax between spouses provides no benefit at all to children. Additionally, children inheriting are subject to estate tax, regardless of where the money is coming from, so the exemption again is clearly to benefit the spouse and not the children.

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As above, if this were the case, marriage tax breaks would only benefit families with children. It does not. Even if it did, it would not be an argument against gay couples with children from having marriage benefits. Therefore, either the purpose is not to benefit families with children, in which case your premise is false, and therefore nothing follows from it, or gay couples with children should be allowed to marry while straight couples without children should not be allowed to marry, in which case your premise is true but your conclusion is false.

[Brittain33]

Milhouse, do you know there are same-sex couples who have adopted children together or where the biological parent is out of the picture (because of surrogacy or life events)? Do you not see adopted children as getting the same right as biological children?

[milhouse24]

The hospital policies regarding spouses is a private medical issue dealing directly with the Hospital.  If a hospital wanted to allow visitation to a person's lawyer or power of attorney, you can sue to allow your gay spouse to receive that permission. 

My general feeling is that marriage is pointless.  Some people want a marriage license as a legal protection forcing shared property assets, lifetime financial support, alimony, and forced sexual monogamy.

The marriage laws were written to protect women, who took many months or years out of the work force as a result of pregnancy or child-rearing.  Marriage was a legal entity to force financial protection for the women and force their husbands to stick around, instead of leaving town for the women to raise the children alone and in poverty.  Marriage licenses have always been meant to protect the rights of women in biological child-rearing. 

Unmarried Biological parents DO have to pay child support, if the woman asks the court to force the biological father to pay for the child.  I wonder what the lowest monthly payment per child is in the United States?  Even, if the father gives up the parental rights to the child, he may be compelled to pay child support if the child's needs are not met.  In some countries, sperm donors are forced to pay child support to lesbian families. 

The issue of gay adoption and surrogacy is pointless, because a gay couple should adopt children only if they can afford to support them.  In that sense, adopting children is a financial choice, so gay couples should bear full financial responsibility without government support. 

Marriage Licenses are seen as a government regulation of biological reproduction in order to legally protect the rights of mothers and their biological children.  The government has an interest in protecting the rights of biological children, who may or may not have been born out of wedlock, and to ensure that the biological parents fulfill their legal responsibilities. 

I don't condone these tax breaks for the estate tax and the gift tax if childless straight or gay couples are merely seeking to not pay taxes.  Its an American right to pay taxes, and if gay or straight couples are abusing these loopholes, then these tax loopholes should be closed.  Why would a childless spouse want to hide assets from govt taxes?

[Brittain33]

Marriage Licenses are seen as a government regulation of biological reproduction in order to legally protect the rights of mothers and their biological children. 

No, they aren't. That's why there is no procreative test for marriage and why plenty of couples that are incapable of having children are happily wedded every year. This argument has been used every time there's a court case about same-sex marriage and it always falters on the fact that loads of senior citizens and infertile people get married and that is cause for celebration, and also that same-sex couples have kids.

[CaDan]

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Fail.

Baker v. Nelson recognized the procreative nature of marriage, and like it or not, Baker v. Nelson is the LAW OF THE LAND. (Dismissal for want of a substantial federal question constitutes a decision on the merits, which binds lower courts on the issues presented in the jurisdictional statement.)

Second, other decisions such as Anderson v. King County and Hernandez v. Robles recognized the procreative nature of marriage as a legitimate reason for ensuring that it was not redefined by homosexuals.

Your assertion is a lie.

[Brittain33]

Oh, hey, I genuinely didn't know about that court case from 1970. I've only thought about recent litigation, but something that predates Bowers by 15 years and even the vaguest possibility of same-sex marriage by 25 to 30 is going to look like a museum piece and have dated arguments, even if it is the federal precedent because SCOTUS hasn't ruled on SSM yet.

You are correct, some state court judges haven't thrown out the argument, but it's shot full of holes for the reasons I mentioned. Those judges generally have to shut their minds to the fact that many same-sex couples raise children, and also that no marriage law today in the U.S. tests procreation or excludes obviously infertile couples. How do you address that inconsistency.

[milhouse24]

Milhouse, do you know there are same-sex couples who have adopted children together or where the biological parent is out of the picture (because of surrogacy or life events)? Do you not see adopted children as getting the same right as biological children?

Adoptive parents and legal guardians do have rights over their legally adopted children.

[milhouse24]

Marriage Licenses are seen as a government regulation of biological reproduction in order to legally protect the rights of mothers and their biological children. 

No, they aren't. That's why there is no procreative test for marriage and why plenty of couples that are incapable of having children are happily wedded every year. This argument has been used every time there's a court case about same-sex marriage and it always falters on the fact that loads of senior citizens and infertile people get married and that is cause for celebration, and also that same-sex couples have kids.

My point as I've stated again is that a Marriage License is pointless if you take away the issue of biological procreation.  Then the marriage issue becomes a financial issue and property rights.  If your objective is to promote tax evasion for gay couples, social security scamming, health insurance scamming.  Essentially marriage licenses are a scam if used in that regard, and gay marriage becomes a scam if used for financial security. 

Here is a common question posed to women:  How does a woman grow her investment portfolio?
Answer: Marry a rich man.

Marriage has been used in the past and in the present as a financial investment for women.  Marriage is a pointless ceremony that has become outdated and unnecessary.  It is a tool used by weak women to climb out of poverty when they can't do it themselves.

[Brittain33]

Marriage has been used in the past and in the present as a financial investment for women.  Marriage is a pointless ceremony that has become outdated and unnecessary.  It is a tool used by weak women to climb out of poverty when they can't do it themselves.

This post is sad.

[nclib]

I doubt marriage was ever intended for the protection of women, given that women were expected to summit to their husbands, and if/when they chose careers, they were taken less seriously than men.

[milhouse24]

I doubt marriage was ever intended for the protection of women, given that women were expected to summit to their husbands, and if/when they chose careers, they were taken less seriously than men.

This brings back to my issue and focus on child support and child care.  Marriage was one of the effective legal methods to compel a husband to stay with a woman and their children.
For instance, how is a pregnant woman supposed to work full time?  In the US, women are given at least 6 months of paid maternity leave, but is 6 months of wages enough for a single mom? 

Are you familiar with the term Bastard Children?  Which means that they are fatherless children. 

Its unfortunate, but there are men and fathers who run away from their families and their responsibilities to provide and care for their biological children. 

Instead of focusing on marriage licenses to gay couples, the marriage rate will still decline and in the next decade there will be far less married people, the government should focus on improving child support to bastard children. 

[Brittain33]

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Hrm? Many do work full time until the last month.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I doubt marriage was ever intended for the protection of women, given that women were expected to summit to their husbands, and if/when they chose careers, they were taken less seriously than men.

This brings back to my issue and focus on child support and child care.  Marriage was one of the effective legal methods to compel a husband to stay with a woman and their children.
For instance, how is a pregnant woman supposed to work full time?  In the US, women are given at least 6 months of paid maternity leave, but is 6 months of wages enough for a single mom? 

Are you familiar with the term Bastard Children?  Which means that they are fatherless children. 

Its unfortunate, but there are men and fathers who run away from their families and their responsibilities to provide and care for their biological children. 

Instead of focusing on marriage licenses to gay couples, the marriage rate will still decline and in the next decade there will be far less married people, the government should focus on improving child support to bastard children. 

Serious question: Have you ever met an adult human female?

[milhouse24]

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Hrm? Many do work full time until the last month.

What about child care?  Is anyone going to stay home to watch infants?  The issue of gay marriage is a red herring, gay marriage is a non-issue that affects nothing consequential, except for the previously mentioned tax evasion scams, social security scams, health insurance scams.  Society will not be better or worse in legalizing gay marriage, except for the tax evasion and increase in risky anal intercourse for infectious diseases. 

The real issue will how to care for bastard children trough socialized child care, when men no longer accept their ethical responsibilities as fathers.  Liberals and Feminists seem to forget about the importance of fatherhood, in their quest to break down traditional society. 

[milhouse24]

I doubt marriage was ever intended for the protection of women, given that women were expected to summit to their husbands, and if/when they chose careers, they were taken less seriously than men.

This brings back to my issue and focus on child support and child care.  Marriage was one of the effective legal methods to compel a husband to stay with a woman and their children.
For instance, how is a pregnant woman supposed to work full time?  In the US, women are given at least 6 months of paid maternity leave, but is 6 months of wages enough for a single mom? 

Are you familiar with the term Bastard Children?  Which means that they are fatherless children. 

Its unfortunate, but there are men and fathers who run away from their families and their responsibilities to provide and care for their biological children. 

Instead of focusing on marriage licenses to gay couples, the marriage rate will still decline and in the next decade there will be far less married people, the government should focus on improving child support to bastard children. 

Serious question: Have you ever met an adult human female?

Feminists can in theory take care of themselves as single mothers, right?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I doubt marriage was ever intended for the protection of women, given that women were expected to summit to their husbands, and if/when they chose careers, they were taken less seriously than men.

This brings back to my issue and focus on child support and child care.  Marriage was one of the effective legal methods to compel a husband to stay with a woman and their children.
For instance, how is a pregnant woman supposed to work full time?  In the US, women are given at least 6 months of paid maternity leave, but is 6 months of wages enough for a single mom? 

Are you familiar with the term Bastard Children?  Which means that they are fatherless children. 

Its unfortunate, but there are men and fathers who run away from their families and their responsibilities to provide and care for their biological children. 

Instead of focusing on marriage licenses to gay couples, the marriage rate will still decline and in the next decade there will be far less married people, the government should focus on improving child support to bastard children. 

Serious question: Have you ever met an adult human female?

Feminists can in theory take care of themselves as single mothers, right?

Parse error, I think you're trying to subtly imply that my revulsion at your understanding of gender relations entails a rejection of the idea that marriages should be stable and are the best environment for raising children (which, by the way, is part of why the institution should be extended to gay couples, who are going to be raising children regardless), but I'm not certain.