Need to correct your poll question. Support same sex marriage, I'm neutral. Making same sex marriage a legal option, I support.

I agree that married people should be taxed the same as non married. There should be no financial reward or motivation. It's ridiculous, in my opinion. And there is a lot of legal tangle, sure. I don't know to what degree you're allowed to fiddle with the specifics.

(June 25, 2015 at 2:08 am)robvalue Wrote: I agree that married people should be taxed the same as non married. There should be no financial reward or motivation. It's ridiculous, in my opinion. And there is a lot of legal tangle, sure. I don't know to what degree you're allowed to fiddle with the specifics.

In the U.S., whether marriage affects taxes, and how much, depends on many other factors.  If one makes substantially more money than the other, then marriage gives a tax break.  But not if they earn the same.  Then it can actually cost extra.  Of course, different states have different taxes, and even different counties within states can have different taxes, so the situation is really a good deal more complicated.

There are also tax breaks for having children.  Should people be paid to have children?  I don't think so.  But it is presently the way it is.

As for the poll, I think it should be understood as this:  Your choices are, no marriage for gays but marriage is an option for straight people, or marriage is an option for both gay and straight.  The poll isn't about every social issue, just one very narrow one.

(June 25, 2015 at 9:32 am)Pyrrho Wrote:

(June 25, 2015 at 2:08 am)robvalue Wrote: I agree that married people should be taxed the same as non married. There should be no financial reward or motivation. It's ridiculous, in my opinion. And there is a lot of legal tangle, sure. I don't know to what degree you're allowed to fiddle with the specifics.

In the U.S., whether marriage affects taxes, and how much, depends on many other factors.  If one makes substantially more money than the other, then marriage gives a tax break.  But not if they earn the same.  Then it can actually cost extra.  Of course, different states have different taxes, and even different counties within states can have different taxes, so the situation is really a good deal more complicated.

So it sounds like the way the marriage taxes are setup encourage one person to work and one person to stay at home.

(June 25, 2015 at 12:34 pm)das_atheist Wrote:

(June 25, 2015 at 9:32 am)Pyrrho Wrote: In the U.S., whether marriage affects taxes, and how much, depends on many other factors.  If one makes substantially more money than the other, then marriage gives a tax break.  But not if they earn the same.  Then it can actually cost extra.  Of course, different states have different taxes, and even different counties within states can have different taxes, so the situation is really a good deal more complicated.

So it sounds like the way the marriage taxes are setup encourage one person to work and one person to stay at home.

In a way, yes.  But a tax break is not the same as an income, so one may prefer to have both people work.

Basically, with federal U.S. income tax, if you are married, you may file your taxes jointly, and then the total income is considered to be income earned by two people instead of one.  You can then get a break on your taxes, if one works and the other does not, because each will effectively be considered as earning half of the total income, and the greater the income, the higher percentage of tax that you pay.  So, if you earn $100k per year and your spouse earns nothing, instead of you being taxed at the $100k rate, you will both be taxed at the $50k rate.  This is a bit of an oversimplification, but gives the right general idea for most cases.  Different kinds of income are taxed differently; if you want a full, complete, detailed look, visit the IRS web site and look at form 1040 and the instructions for it to start, and then you would need to look at other things for some of the minutia about how different sources of income are taxed.

Basically, the different sources of income being taxed differently is a con that the rich have put in place in order to pay less in taxes; Warren Buffett famously pays a lower percentage in taxes than his secretary.  To his credit, Buffett does not approve of this.  But this is a digression from the issue of marriage and its impact on taxes (which is only one of many things affected by marriage).

Marriage in the US is a legal contract, pure and simple. The religious ceremony aspect of marriage is separate from the legal contract, and completely unnecessary for a marriage to be recognized by the government.

There is no other legal contract in the US that has limitations by sexual preference (or race or religion, for that matter).

There is no, rationally justified reason to prevent same sex marriage that I have ever heard. The only reasons given are religious.

The State should not interfere with the right of adults to get married, no matter what their sexes are.

As far as the religious ceremony aspect of marriage, I would never attempt to force churches, temples, mosques from to perform religious ceremonies for same sex couples.

I hate to be 'that guy' but the mis-spelling of 'neutral' in the poll is making my temple vein twitch with rage.
Sorry...

Me too. Apologies to Tristan but I just had to sort it out.

(June 25, 2015 at 4:49 pm)Iroscato Wrote: I hate to be 'that guy' but the mis-spelling of 'neutral' in the poll is making my temple vein twitch with rage.
Sorry...

If a misspelled word causes you that much discomfort, you should probably avoid the Internet entirely.  Especially forums and other such nonprofessional writings.  You will certainly see many more misspellings if you persist in using the Internet.

(June 25, 2015 at 5:31 pm)Pyrrho Wrote:

(June 25, 2015 at 4:49 pm)Iroscato Wrote: I hate to be 'that guy' but the mis-spelling of 'neutral' in the poll is making my temple vein twitch with rage.
Sorry...

If a misspelled word causes you that much discomfort, you should probably avoid the Internet entirely.  Especially forums and other such nonprofessional writings.  You will certainly see many more misspellings if you persist in using the Internet.

I know, I know...