Progress...

[Statler Waldorf]

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Name them, these marriage benefits that wouldn't be applicable to homosexual or multi-partner scenarios.

Almost all of them that I know of are simply in recognition of their intent to share their lives, property, liabilities (bankruptcy), and families - There is absolutely no good reason to say homosexuals shouldn't be entitled to these benefits, it's none of your damn business to tell other people what they can do for starters, I can see it now: "Sorry fag, I know your partner is on life support but hasn't got a chance and his mother is nuts and wants to keep him on there for decades, but you're not married so take a hike!" - Seriously, what damn business is it of yours what gender it they are?

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This is why I hate the gay marriage debate; there are bigots on both sides of the issue. Those benefits are there to assist married couples in starting a stable family. Do gays procreate? So again, it’s like saying it’s nobody’s business who does and does not get maternity leave. I would say it is our business, moms should get maternity leave because that is who it is designed for.
How is it any of your business to tell me what is and is not my business? I did not expect such circularity from you VOID.

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No it damn well isn't - Infertile and disinterested couples can still marry and there are fuck all benefits that married people with children get compared to non-married parents, and it's none of the government's fucking business to coerce people into having children - that would just be fucking sick.

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Well I don’t see the government going so far as to conduct “fertility” tests, but I think it is in all of our vested interest to reward people for raising kids in a stable environment. If the government is going to be in the marriage business, which I have already stated they probably should not be, this is the best way to do it.

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Like the money is a big issue for them.... What an asshole.

And following your reasoning there, we should tell infertile and disinterested married couples to shove their tax breaks right? Are we going to get government spies to check and see if everyone is trying to have kids or is infertile? After all it would be a form of tax-fraud... Damn the IRS is going to be busy in the US.

Oh, and all of the aid received for caring for children is contingent upon the number of children under your care, NOT whether or not you are married - You want to tell single moms that they don't get the same aid because they're not married? What about unmarried couples caring for children?

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Actually the money could be very helpful in raising children. It’s hard to deem anyone 100 percent infertile (besides gays), so I don’t see your fertility test as even a relevant point. Why resort to personal attacks? Have I attacked anyone in this thread by expressing an opinion I was asked to express?

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Have you never heard of adoption? Of course you have, so stop kidding yourself with this bullshit. Gay people who are married without children, get the same benefits as straight folks without kids, and if they have children under their care, either from their own prior relationships or because they adopted they should get the same aid, based on means relative to need - The more children under your care the more help you get relative to income - There is absolutely no reason why that could not be applied to gay couples.

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I don’t think gay adoption should be legal, so your point proves nothing and only moves the topic of discussion.

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False analogy, you cannot get pregnant, Gay people can chose to share their lives, property, families etc - You bigoted assholes simply want to treat them unfairly when they chose to do so - It's actually analogous to a bunch of fundie assholes telling a woman who can get pregnant that she cannot do so and have the child recognized by the state and she won't get the same funding, simply because of some bullshit arbitrary reason like "You're going to be raising that child with another woman".

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Ahhh! I have got you on this one. You are right, I cannot get pregnant (and gays cannot have children naturally), but I can adopt! So if I adopt a baby could I still get maternity leave? Nope! Uh oh! Are my employers now bigots because they won’t give me the rights that moms get? Those evil employers!

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They want fair treatment by the state, not being shoved aside by bigoted assholes who think they have the authority to tell other people what they can do with their own damn lives, given second rate treatment and being opposed when it comes to having a family.

I agree that churches shouldn't have to marry anyone they don't want, it's not my place to tell them what they can or can not do - All the state should ever do is recognize the intent of consenting adults and treat them the same as everyone else, the people themselves can call it whatever the fuck they like, you fundie nuts can call it 'marriage under the eyes of the lord' or whatever the fuck you like, masochists can call it 'life bondage', someone else can call it 'wooplah' and I couldn't care less, but when one of you self-righteous authoritarian douche-bags tries to order people around and impose your values on everyone else I gotta say FUCK YOU.

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This is getting absurd. You are attacking me because of my religious beliefs even though I have not brought them into this discussion at all. I made an argument completely based on legal intentionality grounds and you bring my religion into it and start attacking me? You sir are the bigot here, not me.

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Yeah but that's not going to happen, not with all these imposing ass-clowns sitting up high and telling everyone how shit's going to happen, whether you like it or not, in the mean time we're treating good people like second rate pieces of trash - that has to stop.

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How do you know they are good people? There is no such thing as a “good person” in my book.

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Statler Walderf, or whatever, I wage war against you, sir. En garde!

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Get in line. :-P

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I've never understood why Christians are so tied to conservatism since Jesus himself was so liberal. He wanted people to pay their taxes and give money to the poor, yet modern conservatives are against these principles.

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Conservatives pay more taxes and give more money to charity than liberals, so sounds like they are very much in line with Christ’s teachings.

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This is a pretty stupid statement. Not sure which benefits you're talking about, but what gay people are fighting for is to have equal benefits with married heterosexual couples. But what you're basically saying is that, "I'm against gay couples having the same rights as heterosexual couples, because then they'll have equal rights."

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I am talking about the financial tax and insurance benefits given to married couples.

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Ahh, the old, "marriage is for raising children" argument. What about heterosexual couples who can't have kids? What about allowing gay couples to adopt kids? What about lesbian couples who get artificially inseminated? You seem to be reverting to the "them filthy queers and dykes shouldn't be allowed to raise kids" idea.

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I don’t support gay adoption.

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At last we agree on something, but I'll take it one step further: Churches shouldn't be allowed to fund ballot proposals to ban gay marriage. And are you actually admitting there should be a wall of separation between church & state?

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Want to know an awesome tip about those ballot proposals? If you don’t agree with the proposal, don’t vote for it. Preventing groups from proposing new laws would violate their first amendment rights. Yes, there should be a means of protecting churches from the government.

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False. Even as far back as 2000.

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I meant naturally. I should have been more specific.

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That's just your employer. I've known people, in the US, who have taken paternity leave & it's fairly common in other countries.

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My employer is the Federal Government.

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If the ceremony can't create a legal kinship between to previously unrelated people, then it's just a dog & pony show.

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But I thought it was all about the love and commitment to one another? Gays need to be honest, it’s about the money.

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Question: Why does marriage have to have some kind of "legal" aspect in the first place? Why can't it simply be a celebration of love? Drop the "legal" aspects of marriage, remove all benefits given to married couples, and the problem solves itself. There is no reason why married couples should have more benefits than unmarried couples in the first place. You could make an argument for supporting "child benefits" when the couple produce or look after a child, but I don't see anything that "married" couples can do that "unmarried" couples cannot. Ergo, if you really want to be fair, you have to have equal rights between married and unmarried couples.

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I actually agree with this and would support this over legal benefits for gay and multiple marriages. There has to be some legal recognition of marriage though for immigration purposes, but I think the whole financial benefits was someone trying to do a nice thing that ended up just causing a mess.

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Actually, where I live its more profitable to have children unmarried, lots of couples stay unmarried, because the woman being an 'unmarried mother' receives much more help from the government. They still live together haha, how is that for an irony Statler?

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Yeah I know a couple like that. That’s more of a social welfare debate though. I see your point though and it is well taken.

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Stalin Waldork's suddenly gone quiet aint he?

And lastpoet I know countless examples of the UK benefit system where single parents get better benefits than married parents. So again, his argument is pure shite.

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Single persons get benefits for different reasons than married people do, false analogy.