News & Politics QotW: The Taxman
As the April 15th tax filing deadline looms, many gay couples are facing higher tax bills because they do not get the federal tax benefits that accompany marriage. The same is true for heterosexual couples who chose not to get married. Do you think this is fair?
Of course it's fair. Marriage is a child-bearing union of two people who commit to raise up more little taxpayers. Or, from another perspective, it is a sacramental union of two souls before God, geared towards the production of more lives. The government has a vested interest in promoting stable taxpaying individuals, and is well within its rights to offer tax benefits to married people. God has a vested interest in the human race, and for whatever reason has decided we are worth the effort to love.
In the case of gay couples there is no moral or biological ability to be married as both participants are the same sex. This is just a fundamental concept here, but marriage produces children and homosexuals cannot reproduce unless they perform extreme measures to do so. Marriage, true marriage, is closed to them. Imitations can and have been made, but they lack the essential aspects of true marriage.
In the case of unwed couples, there is no real commitment to hold them together should things get tough. Bill wants to continue playing guitar at college parties, Jane wants to settle down. Poof, the relationship is over. Any kids get shuttled between the parents, or not, and grow up completely unaware of the benefits of a traditional family system. This not only damages children, causing increased juvenile delinquency and increasing the likelihood that they never have a successful marriage, but it also damages the two adults. Bitter feelings are the norm, and that is never good. The good news is that if they live together long enough they become common-law spouses. Why is that? Because the state recognizes that marriage is between a man, a woman, and God...perhaps? I don't know the tax benefits of being a common-law spouse, but all you people living together better watch out!
Homosexuals and unwed couples should not be afforded the benefits of marriage, because marriage is more than just a legal status. It's a moral action, a lifelong commitment. It's more than the state can offer us, and people lose sight of that.
From a practical standpoint, if the benefits of marriage were available to basically anybody regardless of their marital status they would simply lower the tax benefits of marriage. Get real, folks.
Comments
John
I see the logic in your statements, both the secular/government mindset of 'breed more taxpayers' to the religious mindset of 'god made us to procrate & sent us out to do so'.
Somewhere (many moons ago) I posted about something similar looking at the other point of view: Once it was perfectly legal to deny a heterosexual couple the sanctity of marriage on the grounds that one or other were unable to procreate. It was equally acceptable to annul the marriage on the grounds of infertility. Indeed the early / middle ages marriage almost always took place with a pregnant bride as the bethrothal (now generally merged into the marriage ceremony) was legally binding.
Could we one day move to the orthodox position that only a procreating couple were a true marriage in the eyes of society?
Would infertility once again become a stigma to be bourne shamefully, to be a second class citizen or forced into celibacy unable to find an acceptable mate as society would condemn such a match?
Even to be only endured as part of a family complex, the maiden aunt, unwed uncle, aiding the 'proper' relatives to bring up the young?
OK, that is as much a 'thin edge of the wedge' as non-heterosexual marriage leading to the breakdown of morals is to my view point.
I think it is as much the feminist side of me as the liberal to be reduced to no more than a breeding pair. It made sense once that the beloved of God go forth and multiply, in an uncertain world as a minority amoungst others. It made sense once to have dietary restrictions: these have been (amoungst most Christians) abandoned in the face of modern life, as has the strict and mercyless punishments for adultery etc.
In my more irreverant moments I sometimes wonder if the increase in the apparent number of homosexuals is not God's way of saying "whoa, I told you to go forth and multiply but that was 4 thousand years ago! Slow down now!' :)
But I am neither Catholic or particulary Christian, and am terribly liberal ~ I would rather people listened to Jesus first, as he had some lovely things to say, than St Paul's re-itteration of the OT.
So, I'm not saying that marriage is all about babies, but it has to be open to the possibility or it falls short of the mark.
Homosexuals lack the biological means to experience the full marriage, unwed couples lack the commitment to one another to raise a child in the best possible environment.
John
John
Which means that the country was founded on Christian values. To toss those values out the door means to abandon the assumed responsibility the Founders were counting on to make the free'est nation functional.
Nobody is asking the court to force anything. This is an accommodation of desired behavior. Behavior that best benefits the society the government governs. It used to be in effect, there was a marriage penalty, that has been corrected to encourage the best for our society.
No, it means nothing of the sort. Many folks held those values, but not all. And, of course, it is also a question of which set of Christian values you mean, as not all of the groups held the same values. To choose the obvious examples, some were pro-slavery and others were anti-slavery, some were pacifist and others were not. Many of the early groups favored plural marriages or none. To say that they all held the same set of values is naive at best.
As for the question of whether marriage in general (much less gay marriage) benefits society, I refer you back to those Christian groups which did and do oppose it.
John
An accommodation of the behavior the court desired, not of what the personal desires.
It is about life, and being open to the creation of it within a framework of God's plan. Marriage is part of that plan, which is why people who conceive out of wedlock face greater difficulty. I don't think anyone would argue that it is easy for a single mom.
Being sterile because of biology leaves the option for life open, and that's what is important.
I think it's important to talk about this, because this is one of the biggest beefs people have with traditional concepts of sex and marriage.
The line you speak of is at the end of the main text. They used Anno Domini or In the Year of Our Lord [1] for the same reason that they wrote in English - they wanted their work to be understood. Had they linked it to the Chinese calendar, then fewer folks would have known what they meant.
John
[1] Since replaced by "Common Era"in the anthropologic and ethnologic literature, in an attempt to be more sensitive to non-Christians. That it implicitly includes a reference to the AD system and to English whereas the prior method only linked to the AD system, and so is more parochial rather than less, seems to have escaped these folks...
But it does bring up an interesting point. What year is it in the Middle East? Is it 1460-something, or is it 2008? How about China? Is it 5047, or 2008?
Sure it had - Illinois and Utah, to name two examples.
And many non-Christians hold to those values as well. Not because God told them to do so, but because many of those rules make life more pleasant and society better [1].
But the court represents us, in bulk, as do the Congress and President. Thus, they should reflect our personal desires. At one time, the majority of us felt that mixed-race marriages were evil and should not be permitted. As society changed, the legislatures and courts recognized this change and allowed mixed-race marriages [2]. Similarly, at one point, divorce was considered evil and few states permitted it except in extreme circumstances. Once states began to recognize a right to divorce in most circumstances (no-fault divorce), the courts once more followed the Constitution and allowed the change in the marriage contract obtained in a no fault state to apply even in a state that would not have allowed the divorce.
John
[1] Or, as Franklin (an avowed Deist) said, "Perhaps these things are not bad because they are forbidden, but were forbidden because they are bad".
[2] More specifically, the courts recognized that marriage was a legal contract and that a contract entered into in one state (where mixed-race marriages were permitted) was, by constitutional law, legally binding in other states (where mixed-race marriages were not permitted). The parallels to gay marriage are amusing.
You are right, it's in the heart. But it helps if one thinks of marriage as between the husband and wife, who jointly make a promise to God. Accountability to God is a major reason for the success of many marriages...including mine, I hope.
Alot of folks bristle at the thought that something they find morally wrong might be redefined without their input.
Because the 'reward' is not actually for comitment,nor does it reward those who wish to support and emotionally bond with each other. It may do as a side-effect but what is rewarded, what is being CHOSEN is a pair of humans that are capable of breeding.
Adultary is actually mentioned in the Top 10 of bad-stuff but adultary is tolerated in a way that homosexuality is not. Why? because you don't HAVE to be happy in a marriage to be able to breed.
OK, I am liberal. I am also straight, married, without children. How different is my relationship to a homosexual one given that children are not involved?
er... I get a piece of paper from the government.
and there is the potential.
Yet again, going off on a tangent, I am adopted. The two humans who cared for me did not actually conceive me. Something my Mother was deeply ashamed of ~ her inability to have children. Something that my paternal family blamed her for too.
Sigh. I intelectually see ScioScio's points. I even agree that we need to promote stable relationships for the long term future of humanity. I just don't think, emotionally or practically, that a small percentage of gay partnerships or unmarried partnerships is really going to screw this up long term.
I sit next to a woman who has been with the same male partner for 25 years. I know others who have been married & divorced in the same time.
But this is a good debate, and a pretty respectful & thoughtful one.
*grin* one of the things I hate is the US insistance on referencing UTC or the Universal Time Constant when it has been GMT / Greenwich Mean Time ~ but you can't reference something that isn't US can you?
This is somewhat facitious obviously but an equivalent point.
John
Because if they are saying it's 2008 then I tip my hat to our Western ancestors for accomplishing a mighty feat of calendar conquering.
And why there is a lot of pressure for the wrong solution (Constitutional amendment) for the question. Changing the legal definition to "civil union" for everyone, and reserving "marriage" for religious ceremonies would solve the problem (but create others) without opening the can of worms that an amendment raises.
John
Fortunately, the dates are different enough that there is little chance for confusion (imagine if it were AD 2008 and 2002 AH!).
John
John
You may be interested in the following article:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/04/15/fragmented.families.ap/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail
I only copied the link but a study, supported by 4 Marriage-positive interest groups, has calculated the cost of fragmented families to the tax payer annually and the interest groups are promoting more money for marriage support etc.
Fragmented = Divorced or single parent.
Given today's political climate, this is no longer true for the majority. Instead of hiding terrible behaviors, people are moving through the courts and legislature to make them legal. and since they are met with roadblocks by Christian organizations, they are condemning the Christians for judging. That's what the hate speech legislation is all about.
Yes, they should represent us in bulk, does this mean that anything goes as long somebody wants it? There are real costs to our society with this behavior. While there were issues in the day of mixed marriage, they were issues based entirely on oppression of a race. Racism is wrong and it took an entire century and more to correct it after the end of the Civil War. Some of that fight remains to this day. On that move to make divorce 'no fault' I believe that was a critical error in the Supreme court back in the 60's. If you look at the statistics of crime and out of wedlock births, and drug use, and just about every indicator of values, 4 critical decisions rendered by that court fundamentally changed our culture. Prior to those decisions, all those statistics were nearly flat, since then they have steadily and radically climbed and continue to still.
I too find the similarity between these two issues... well not humorous but revealing.
Back to the tax incentives for a second, the more i read your statement the more it sounds to me that based on your belief of what marriage is and isnt, the government is stepping over the boundaries of church and state. From my understanding you believe that marriage is a religious moral concept geared toward reproduction. Then it seems to me the government shouldnt be offering incentives