5 ms·

Better question: Why should your relationship status give you better tax benefits than being single?

ahomescu1 13y ago
IMHO, children. Married couples get tax benefits as an incentive to get married and have kids. I find it weird that this argument has so far been completely ignored by either side in the pro/anti-gay marriage discussion (at least as far as I've seen). Disclaimer: I'm single, so I'm not arguing for these benefits. That's just what I always thought the reason was.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Married couples get tax benefits as an incentive to get married and have kids. Married couples in the US most get tax benefits to the extent to which they have a significant imbalance in income, and it seems to be a lot more connected to the idea of traditional division of labor (one partner working in the trade economy while the other provides in-home support for that partner) than children, per se. They are tax benefits that directly subsidize children, but they aren't conditioned on marriage. > I find it weird that this argument has so far been completely ignored by either side in the pro/anti-gay marriage discussion (at least as far as I've seen). The idea that the civil benefits of marriage are inherently tied to the purpose of promoting reproduction are rather central arguments in the anti-same-sex-marriage camp; this was, in fact, the main argument for Prop. 8's constitutionality offered by its proponents.
  - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
    Yeah the children thing is a red herring. Couples may get married in every state who are past the child-bearing age, or even infertile.
    - Crito 13y ago
      Not to mention that you get special consideration / tax treatment from the federal government if you have kids regardless of marital status. For example you don't have to be married to claim children as dependents. The marriage [benefits are for children]/children angle is wrong therefore wrong in two respects.
      - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
        Exactly! My cousins are raising 3 foster kids (now adopted) and their taxes reflect that. So definitely the civil union thing can handle that. The injustice is simply in the sit-in-the-back-of-the-bus thing - that a lesbian couple should be stamped 'civil union' just so everybody knows they're not as good. Its Jim Crow all over again.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    > The idea that the civil benefits of marriage are inherently tied to the purpose of promoting reproduction are rather central arguments in the anti-same-sex-marriage camp; this was, in fact, the main argument for Prop. 8's constitutionality offered by its proponents. My apologies then, I haven't followed the gay marriage discussion in general, only the discussion about Brendan Eich.
- curun1r 13y ago
  We have a lot of shortages in this world, but human beings aren't one of them. Any incentive for procreating is, at best, antiquated and, at worst, contributing to the overpopulation of the planet.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    That's true in the 21st century, but it wasn't true for most of humanity's history. In addition, there was always a population-level competition between countries (you out-breed the other guys, then conquer them by brute force). I'm not sure whether in the age of jet fighters, strike drones and nukes this competition makes sense anymore.
tommorris 13y ago
Mutual care. If you are married (or in a civil union or domestic partnership or whatever separate-but-equal code word people want to use to grant gay people almost-but-not-equal rights), you engage in mutual care for one another. You look after each other when sick, you cover for each other's temporary financial shortcomings (when they lose a job for instance). You provide a whole lot of care that if you weren't together would be something that society would have to provide, especially in older age. Take my paternal grandparents. When my grandmother was still alive, the two of them happily lived together and cared for one another even though my grandfather was at that point experiencing the early onset of dementia. When she died, my grandfather had to go into residential care, paid for partly by their pension, partly by my parents and uncles, and partly through the subsidy that the state provide for elderly people going into care homes. The more people who are able to live together in a mutually caring relationship like a long-term marriage, the less people need to go into care homes meaning the less subsidy needs to go into that kind of care for the elderly. Marriage has a societal benefit in promoting that kind of mutual care, regardless of the gender of the partners and regardless of whether you have kids (and, hell, same-sex couples can and do have kids, so that's a shit argument anyway). Could you set up another system to provide that kind of benefit? Sure. But this is the system we have and it should be available to long-term gay couples as it is for straight couples.

IMHO, children. Married couples get tax benefits as an incentive to get married and have kids. I find it weird that this argument has so far been completely ignored by either side in the pro/anti-gay marriage discussion (at least as far as I've seen). Disclaimer: I'm single, so I'm not arguing for these benefits. That's just what I always thought the reason was.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> Married couples get tax benefits as an incentive to get married and have kids. Married couples in the US most get tax benefits to the extent to which they have a significant imbalance in income, and it seems to be a lot more connected to the idea of traditional division of labor (one partner working in the trade economy while the other provides in-home support for that partner) than children, per se. They are tax benefits that directly subsidize children, but they aren't conditioned on marriage. > I find it weird that this argument has so far been completely ignored by either side in the pro/anti-gay marriage discussion (at least as far as I've seen). The idea that the civil benefits of marriage are inherently tied to the purpose of promoting reproduction are rather central arguments in the anti-same-sex-marriage camp; this was, in fact, the main argument for Prop. 8's constitutionality offered by its proponents.
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  Yeah the children thing is a red herring. Couples may get married in every state who are past the child-bearing age, or even infertile.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Not to mention that you get special consideration / tax treatment from the federal government if you have kids regardless of marital status. For example you don't have to be married to claim children as dependents. The marriage [benefits are for children]/children angle is wrong therefore wrong in two respects.
    - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
      Exactly! My cousins are raising 3 foster kids (now adopted) and their taxes reflect that. So definitely the civil union thing can handle that. The injustice is simply in the sit-in-the-back-of-the-bus thing - that a lesbian couple should be stamped 'civil union' just so everybody knows they're not as good. Its Jim Crow all over again.
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  > The idea that the civil benefits of marriage are inherently tied to the purpose of promoting reproduction are rather central arguments in the anti-same-sex-marriage camp; this was, in fact, the main argument for Prop. 8's constitutionality offered by its proponents. My apologies then, I haven't followed the gay marriage discussion in general, only the discussion about Brendan Eich.
curun1r 13y ago
We have a lot of shortages in this world, but human beings aren't one of them. Any incentive for procreating is, at best, antiquated and, at worst, contributing to the overpopulation of the planet.
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  That's true in the 21st century, but it wasn't true for most of humanity's history. In addition, there was always a population-level competition between countries (you out-breed the other guys, then conquer them by brute force). I'm not sure whether in the age of jet fighters, strike drones and nukes this competition makes sense anymore.

tommorris 13y ago

Mutual care. If you are married (or in a civil union or domestic partnership or whatever separate-but-equal code word people want to use to grant gay people almost-but-not-equal rights), you engage in mutual care for one another. You look after each other when sick, you cover for each other's temporary financial shortcomings (when they lose a job for instance). You provide a whole lot of care that if you weren't together would be something that society would have to provide, especially in older age. Take my paternal grandparents. When my grandmother was still alive, the two of them happily lived together and cared for one another even though my grandfather was at that point experiencing the early onset of dementia. When she died, my grandfather had to go into residential care, paid for partly by their pension, partly by my parents and uncles, and partly through the subsidy that the state provide for elderly people going into care homes. The more people who are able to live together in a mutually caring relationship like a long-term marriage, the less people need to go into care homes meaning the less subsidy needs to go into that kind of care for the elderly. Marriage has a societal benefit in promoting that kind of mutual care, regardless of the gender of the partners and regardless of whether you have kids (and, hell, same-sex couples can and do have kids, so that's a shit argument anyway). Could you set up another system to provide that kind of benefit? Sure. But this is the system we have and it should be available to long-term gay couples as it is for straight couples.