Gay vs Straight Marriage - Yes or No Poll

[joywitch_m_curmudgeon]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Amanda Geist" <editor at t...> 
wrote:
> 
> All of this is fine with me. What I don't like is two gay people 
who only
> want their marriage recognized so they can get tax breaks filing 
jointly, or
> to be able to "get" something. That sort of thing came into being 
to help
> ease the burden of raising children, which most gay couples aren't 
doing.
> Which is why they're well-dressed and speeding past me in their 
Hummers,
> while I trundle along in my low-end Saturn with the handprints and 
stickers
> all over the windows (DINK envy, sorry; and I know darn well it's 
not
> confined to gay couples). The point is, I hear way too much "we 
should get
> the same stuff hetero marriages get" without (in most cases) a 
commensurate
> burden. If it's about *getting,* I think the intent is misplaced.

I agree with most of what you said, Amanda, except for some of the 
above paragraph.  One thing that just about every study of straight 
people's attitudes towards gays has found is that when straight 
people talk about "gays," they are almost always referring to gay 
men.  Lesbians are often invisible, despite the fact that they make 
up half of the gay population.

I can understand your annoyance at those DINKy gay men (I feel it 
too, to be honest), but they really are the simply the most visible 
of the DINKs.  Lesbian couples are not only far more likely to have 
kids (I don't know what the percentage of lesbian couples who have 
kids is, I wasn't able to find the statistics but the ones I've seen 
in the past indicate that most lesbian couples do have kids) but are 
also usually in a lower economic bracket than gay male couples.  It 
is true that most gay male couples don't have kids, though.  But not 
all straight couples have kids either.  If you are going to deny gay 
people the right to get married because they're not likely to have 
kids (I'm not talking about you, personally, Amanda, I know you don't 
feel that way) then you should deny anyone over childbearing age the 
right to get married, too.

And as for tax breaks, it depends on the particulars of the 
situation, but most people don't get tax breaks when they get 
married.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Most people wind up paying 
more taxes when they are married than when they are single.  That's 
why there has been so much debate in Congress about eliminating 
the "marriage penalty."

And while I can understand being annoyed at people who say they are 
being discriminated against just because they want some particular 
benefit without the particular responsibility, I really don't think 
that that's true of the vast majority of gay couples.  I think most 
gay couples want to get married for most of the same reasons that 
straight couples want to get married, and because they've heard all 
the horror stories about gay couples where one person has died or 
become incapacitated and the other person has been denied the right 
to see their partner, bury their partner, keep their house, raise 
their children, etc.

--JMC