6 ms·

From your perspective, restricting marriage to a man and a woman isn't anti-gay. And that belief isn't inherently anti-gay in my view. But the real effect of

• lostmsu 10y ago
  At this moment, why would government give any tax breaks to gay couples if most of them (even in the states, where they are allowed) do not raise children (which, I believe, is the reason for those tax breaks in the first place)?
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > At this moment, why would government give any tax breaks to gay couples if most of them (even in the states, where they are allowed) do not raise children (which, I believe, is the reason for those tax breaks in the first place)? The tax breaks for raising children (e.g., deductions for dependents, child tax credit, etc.) aren't tied to marriage, they are tied to having legally-dependent children. Insofar as there are tax breaks for marriage rather than having children, there's a long discussion possible about what the public policy rationale for them is, but the best explanation is probably incentive to the social stability of a stabilizing relationship and the reduced risk of dependency on public support programs that comes from a mutually supportive relationship (which, even if it fails, still often comes with legal support obligations.) These are just as valid with childless, including same-sex, marriage as with any other marriage.
    • lostmsu 10y ago
      So we've just got from 'evil' "votes against same-sex marrige" that Mozilla CEO guy was fired for, to "cosiders tax breaks are for families to (eventually) get children" -> "votes against gay marriages because they don't get children even if though they can", which does not look evil at all. I could probably summarize opinions of those voted against same-sex marriage in "marriage and any tax benefits coming from it are there to support people who will eventually raise children". I see, that gay people are not happy, because opposite-sex marriages still get some benefits, but some of them do not end up having kids. In my opinion, to separate the bugs from the meatloafs, we should separate living together and having kids legally. And the first one should be available to any kinds of partners, but should not provide any benefits, and the second should give benefits, and be positively recognized in society as "family". But allowing gay-marriages is in no way makes lives closer to that.
      • tomlock 10y ago
        But marriage also imparts many other rights not directly related to children, and not all marriages can or will produce children, hetero or otherwise. This has always been true, so arguments relating to children as the reason for marriage are quite tenuous. Ed: in this case brendan eich either made a mistake with his donation, or is anti gay rights.
        • lostmsu 10y ago
          See discussion below.
  • tomlock 10y ago
    Perhaps then the discussion should be about why tax breaks are erroneously associated with marriage, which in many heterosexual unions doesn't produce children (should we ban marrying a post-menopausal woman?), than about why homosexual marriage shouldn't be allowed. Marriage has many other benefits that aren't directly related to bearing children.
    • lostmsu 10y ago
      I agree. We should instead disallow non-bearing children couples from being married, or remove tax benefits. IMHO, we could have made it all very clear, however, most people would not understand if government would try to redefine 'family' to require kids, because common understanding of family is a deeply conservative thing, and even most liberals would not feel that change good. I would go even further, and would provide tax credits for anyone planning to have kids in, say, the next 5 years, and I would take money back after 5 years, if no kid is out.
      • tomlock 10y ago
        This is entirely unrelated to marriage, so brendan eich should be spending his money on other lobbying efforts if that was his goal.