Google To Add Pay To Cover a Tax For Gays 1036
GrApHiX42 writes "Starting on Thursday, Google is going to increase the salaries of gay and lesbian employees whose partners receive domestic partner health benefits, largely to compensate them for an extra tax they must pay that heterosexual married couples do not. Google is not the first company to make up for the extra tax. At least a few large employers already do. But benefits experts say Google's move could inspire its Silicon Valley competitors to follow suit, because they compete for the same talent."
Why so discriminating? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:1, Insightful)
Still unfair.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, heck! We can all be gay! (Score:3, Insightful)
This. All I see is an article about how the government intrudes into family lives, giving particular benefits to two heterosexuals living together in a particular sort of arrangement but not to singles, homosexuals or people living together under other arranegments. And Google has decided to follow the government's lead by discriminating against everyone whose lifestyle is not that of a particular steady homosexual partnership, e.g. people who remain single / practice polyamory / shack up in a massive commune / sleep around / anything else.
All this crap about the moving helping in "competing for the same talent" implies that everyone is either in a gay marriage[tm] or straight marriage[tm].
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, the government can discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (prevent a same-sex couple from attaining the same marriage a differing-sex couple is entitled to), but a private-sector company cannot?
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:2, Insightful)
"some people may not believe in marrage"
You don't believe in getting a certificate from a non-religious Justice of the Peace? Sorry, but suck it up, princess.
"may not want to get married"
Then don't. Straight people are being discriminated against? Forgive language better suited to sites other than Slashdot, but give me a fucking break. Oh, we poor heterosexuals, what with our option to actually get married if we choose.
Re:Andrew (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Five months maternity leave? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maternity leave is one area where the US is particularly behind the rest of the world. In general US labor laws are tilted in favor of the business you work for, what will be most profitable for them, unlike much of Europe where the employees actually have more power in many situations than their employers (as it should be).
Two wrongs don't make a right (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry,two wrongs don't make a right. Plus, spare me the BS please. He's not proposing to deny you gay marriage or anything, he's just just saying basically that compensating that tax for one particular slice is still leaving out a whole other lot of slices which, for all practical purposes, are just as married.
It seems strange to me to see reactions basically boiling down to "booyah, now it's your turn to suck it up." Unless he is one of those that actually did anything against you in the first place, two wrongs just don't make a right.
And basically you're trying to prove what? That gays can be just as much self-centered pricks as the fundies on the other side? We already knew that. After all the most vehement anti-gay preachers turned out to _be_ gay.
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:5, Insightful)
OK. So, you are upset google is compensating gays in long term relationships for a tax code that is discriminatory against gays and you wish to eliminate unfair wages based on sexual orientation. So then by implication I can assume you are also wishing to legalize gay marriage so that we can eliminate the federal tax code discrimination against long term gay relationships in order to stamp out google's wage discrimination which is based on countering the federal tax code discrimination against gays?
Hint: if you're against one form of sexual discrimination, then you MUST be against another form of sexual discrimination in order to maintain a consistent logical argument.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:4, Insightful)
Christianity is NOT anti gay, some (most) of the christian churches are anti-gay. They base this on a selective reading of the Old Testament which they use to justify an opinion they already held previously. The "christians" who use their faith to justify anti-gay bigotry should be told to read Leviticus in its entirety and fuck off. Especially those in US churches that look more like Old Testament eschatological cults than anything teaching the New Testament values of love and forgiveness.
Re:far less than 50% (Score:2, Insightful)
Health care taxes done rigght & not an issue (Score:1, Insightful)
People who say it is wrong for the Google to do this because it is discriminatory against heterosexuals and others who don't get other types of tax write offs miss the point. A family created between people by whatever means people choose should be recognized by the government. Anything otherwise is discriminatory. It isn't necessarily discriminatory to give write offs to family though over individuals. We live in a welfare state and certain benefits are provided to you. Schooling, tax write-offs to your parents, etc. You received these once too even if it was indirectly. If I create a family with another man (I'm a guy) and raise a child with him than why shouldn't I also be entitled to the same tax write-offs and health benefits that any other hetrosexual family is entitled to? And the same thing basically applies to other write-offs for many other things like disabilities, etc. There may be things that the government allows you to write off that you shouldn't be able to write off or is discriminatory against the poor/rich classes. For instance if they allowed only high ticket items to be deductible for tax purposes and only taxed the lower part of your income. In effect making the poor pay the taxes and the rich pay nothing. Or possibly the exact opposite. In any case this issue is clear cut. Gays shouldn't pay more than anybody else. That's just wrong. If you want to tax the childless population- because they have a larger disposable income-maybe we can figure something out- but don't do it based on the Gay population- there is an identical family structure here that is utterly discriminatory.
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Marriage is the mechanism to subscribe to the benefits you feel discriminated against - just like filling you tax return. Marriage is not a declaration of Love or some blood pact before ${diety}, it is a legal contract and nothing more.
The only real discrimination was to restrict this legal contract to people of specific sexual orientation.
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:4, Insightful)
consistent logical argument
US politics abandoned that quaint idea decades ago.
Re:Well, heck! We can all be gay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:far less than 50% (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the point was that if you "go all natural", you'll get pregnant way more often, and thus "get a couple periods every couple years."
But, what do I know? I'll return to my basement now.
not really, because everybody benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
No law can be defect-free, but consider the fact that every member of a Gay/Lesbian couple was once a child.
Some mostly-correct assumptions are implicit in the law. Kids are known to do better in intact families. (even kids that grow up to be gay) Kids do better with a stay-at-home parent, traditionally the mom. Hetero couples generally produce kids. Legal issues related to kids (inheritance, etc.) are easier with a married couple.
Even totally single people benefit from marriage-related tax breaks. Oh sure, having benefited as a child it would be mighty nice (totally selfish) to throw away the tax advantages for the generation that follows. Your childhood is comfy, and screw the next generation, hmmm?
It's kind of like social security, moving wealth across generations. The kids are at least a good investment; they cost less and aren't just waiting around to die. Better food or additional at-home parental time would do some good.
Think of the children, Gay ones included.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:2, Insightful)
After all, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal."
It's men and not people, and at the time of writing I'm guessing it really did mean actual males and not men as in mankind which includes women, since women couldn't vote then and clearly weren't equal. Even ignoring that, I've always found that sentence to be deeply suspect. When it was first written, they somehow managed to have it not include slaves.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anal-abusing males and group-masturbating females (commonly known as lesbians) do not contribute children towards the population of Planet Earth and USA in particular.
Contributing children towards Planet Earth is something that governments in general are going to have to discourage. At least one country on Earth already does. The planet simply cannot sustain a growing population indefinitely.
I should also note that many gay or lesbian couples do adopt children, or undergo fertility treatment to have children.
Since it is the job of the future generation to care about the current generation when it becomes elderly, people who do not contribute DNS to the future generation, shall be required to shoulder extra burden for the common good of the society.
In general, the elderly that the current generation care for are their own parents, not other "generic" elderly people. Given your logic, then gay and lesbian people are doing themselves a disservice by leaving themselves without someone to care for them when they grow older.
In Europe and South America many countries actually had taxes for healthy 25+, who were unmarried and 30+ still without kids.
Whilst I've never heard of such a tax, I suspect that "had" is the operative word if such taxes did actually exist. We are already straining environmental resources significantly with the population we have. We do not need more to contribute to the problem.
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait, you're not gay and don't care about gay rights unless you're on the losing end? Hypocrites.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:2, Insightful)
You can try to twist it all you want, but Sodomy has that name for a reason. There is also at least one passage in the New Testament that decries homosexual relationships, not to mention a few that denigrate women.
Note that I'm not even a Christian any more, but I find it pathetic that people are trying to twist the bible to suit their own agendas and make it more politically acceptable rather than just standing up for what it says. At least when I was religious I stood up for my beliefs. I can respect people who stand up for themselves in the face of oppression.
PS I've "read Leviticus in its entirety" several times.
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Minors can't (by definition) render legal consent so I fail to see the point you're trying to make.
Re:far less than 50% (Score:1, Insightful)
So what would you use that "human female reproductive system" for?
Parent's point being, there's no period when you're pregnant.
Re:far less than 50% (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even the new testament criticises homosexual relationships (and the only laws of the old testament that were "updated" in the new testament were ones to do with sacrifices and what you could put into your body).
I just Googled to find passages and opinions on it. One site tries to say that the bible is simply criticising non-Christian worship practices when it complains about same sex relationships, but that's clearly a load of horse shit. It would just say so if that was the case.
It also tries to claim that the passage about Sodom and Gomorrah is nothing to do with Sodomy and that "know" literally means know rather than "have sex with", when Lot clearly offers his daughters to "do with what you will" instead of the men.
I don't believe in any of it any more, but like I said I find it pathetic when people try to twist their own scriptures to make them more politically correct instead of just manning up. If you don't agree with your scriptures, then stop worshipping your bigoted God.
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Being a pedophile isn't against the law, if it were that would be thought-crime, as pedophilia is just an attraction to children. Child molestation IS a crime, and if someone commits that crime they'll be put in jail. When they get out they will be discriminated against because of the crime they committed, not their sexual preference.
it hurts those it's intended to help (Score:5, Insightful)
European companies are really hesitant to hire people because it's so damn hard to get rid of people.
Places that think they can get away with it will particularly avoid those who seem likely to take advantage of the benefits.
WTF is with people thinking they should get paid for nothing and/or have a right to get back a job they abandoned for half a year? Everybody else at that company gets hurt, especially the substitute worker who'd really like to keep the job.
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Marriage is not... blood pact before ${diety}
Actually, arguably it is in some jurisdictions. Here in the UK for example there is no separation of Church and State. In effect that means that the marriage contract, whether conducted in a Church or registry office, is still being sanctioned by the Church. Which makes it a pact before ${diety} whether you like it or not.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anal-abusing males and group-masturbating females (commonly known as lesbians) do not contribute children towards the population of Planet Earth and USA in particular.
I can't find the cite right now, but I have heard that something like 60% of gay males have one or more biological children.
Next?
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe that we quailfy under UK law as a Common Law Couple, though tbh I am not really sure I benifit, I think it just makes it easier for her to get 50% if we split.
There is no recognition under UK Law for anything other than Marriage or Civil Partnership. Neither of you have any more more rights or benefits than two random people who happen to share the same house. "Common Law Marriage" does not exist in the UK.
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the angle I can never figure out. Homosexuality isn't like robbery or assault, it doesn't affect anyone except for those that participate in it.
Logic and sanity have been kicked the bus ever since Prohibition and then the War on Drugs.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed that for them. That is precisely what they meant, after all: that any rich white man was as worthy as any noble white man, not some laughably ridiculous notion that blacks or women had any worth.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
The proper approach to this question is to examine other societies, past and present, with respect to both Christianity and homosexuality. You will find that anti-gay sentiments are all over the world, and pretty independent from religion.
Re:Andrew (Score:5, Insightful)
But they can get married, so why don't they?
If they don't want to get married, but think unmarried gay couples shouldn't get benefits they don't have, the solution is obvious: lobby for gay marriage.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Insightful)
A guy in CA was collecting signatures for a bill to really protect the value and sanctity of marriage. He was trying to ban divorce.
Strangely, not many of these people were willing to sign.
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unmarried hetro couples are now discriminated against. They should get the same as the Gay/Lesbian couples, some people may not believe in marrage or may not want to get married for one reason or another. Why should they be forced to marry just to avoid a tax?
Thats all "legal" marriage is. A tax break.
Love has nothing to do with marriage, regardless what the world wants to believe.
Sure, you can say marriage is the public commit process of your love. And maybe it is. But you have to go sign legal documents, that bonds you and your partner together, in a contract, that comes down to money.
Get divorced? It's all about the money split.
Partner goes into debt, oh ya, they just put you in debt also. legally.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even the new testament criticises homosexual relationships (and the only laws of the old testament that were "updated" in the new testament were ones to do with sacrifices and what you could put into your body).
I just Googled to find passages and opinions on it. One site tries to say that the bible is simply criticising non-Christian worship practices when it complains about same sex relationships, but that's clearly a load of horse shit. It would just say so if that was the case.
It also tries to claim that the passage about Sodom and Gomorrah is nothing to do with Sodomy and that "know" literally means know rather than "have sex with", when Lot clearly offers his daughters to "do with what you will" instead of the men.
I don't believe in any of it any more, but like I said I find it pathetic when people try to twist their own scriptures to make them more politically correct instead of just manning up. If you don't agree with your scriptures, then stop worshipping your bigoted God.
Ya, them daughters of Lot. Nice ladies. They are very faithful to their dad. After all, he's the father of their children.
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. To me, it would be fair if we simply got rid of all tax deductions for being married, children, home loan interest, etc. and just have an overall lower tax rate. I paid my home off by making sacrifices, yet I pay more taxes because I was responsible enough to do so. And why should I subsidize someone else's children? I don't have kids, so I pay yet higher taxes than those who decided to procreate. If you want kids, fine, have them, but a tax deduction for children is no different than me giving you a hand out for the effort.
In a nutshell, I pay way more taxes because I am financially responsible and have no kids. And before those with kids (and deductions) say "But you don't understand how expensive it is to have kids", I would remind them that it was their choice, not mine, and there is no sense of fairness in me having to pay for part of raising their kids.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
If we are going to "right" discrimination, with respect to tax inequality, then why won't Google pay UNMARRIED employees more money to make up for the fact that tax law unfairly discriminates against them in favor of married people who have children?
I mean, it's wrong to discriminate, right?
Of course, the whole reason why this exists is to encourage HAVING CHILDREN. Last time I checked, homosexuals lack both types of plumbing to pull this off. So why should they get the tax benefits of married people, if I, as an unmarried single person without kids cannot?
Re:it hurts those it's intended to help (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite simply, because in our role in a society, being productive is important, but producing offspring is much more important (in a long term kind of way). And a society who has foresight would be wise to protect this matter, because companies (who think short-term and in any case don't care about society in general) sure as hell won't.
The matter of companies over here being hessitant to hire is indeed a problem but IMO it's leaps and bounds better than the alternative (ie: to let them can women just because they want to have children, and all of the consequences that that would bring). The "hiring difficulties" eventually get counteracted by the NEED to have employees, and quite honestly I don't think the number of jobs that would be created by easier firing procedures would be so great so as to even consider it. We are all (or were, we're really coming out of it) in an economic crisis, and to blame the unemployment on these laws is being myopic at best. In any case, to have an atmosphere of job insecurity and "trash contracts" is not precisely ideal.
WTF is with people thinking they should get paid for nothing and/or have a right to get back a job they abandoned for half a year? Everybody else at that company gets hurt, especially the substitute worker who'd really like to keep the job.
Aside from what I just said:
a) Having a kid is not "abandoning" your job
b) Why does everybody else get hurt, except (and very marginally) the company's profit, when having to pay for the substitute's salary?
c) Even if the rest of the staff were made to pick up the slack, it'd be "for a bigger cause" and sure as hell they'll be able to enjoy the same "support" when they decide to have a kid. But since you seem to be such a diehard capitalism purist, I'll put it in terms you'll like: As long as they're in work hours, the company OWNS their time, and as such they should just think of it as work as usual... and if any extra hours are derived from it (totally optional, as per the law) they'll be rightly compensated for it.
d) The substitute does not deserve the job. That's why she's a substitute. If she did, she'd HAVE said job. Usual capitalism and job market rules apply. And besides, she TOO would be able to benefit from maternity leave when she needed it. It's not beneficial for anybody (except the company) for the workplace to become a jungle where it's either eat or be eaten.
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:3, Insightful)
You have it backwards; this isn't discrimination, it's social engineering to encourage a particular behavior. Almost all tax law does that to some degree (think about 401K, long term vs. short term capital gains tax, depreciation, tax shelters, etc).
The purpose of tax breaks for home mortgages and married couples is to encourage raising children in stable, two parent households with one parent at home. If you're not married or not expected to breed with your spouse the incentives to raise children in the approved manner don't apply to you. The same can be said about maternity leave; conventional wisdom was that the mother should stay home and care for her baby rather than return to work. (And yea, I know the arguments about elderly or infertile couples. Save your electrons).
Re:Well, heck! We can all be gay! (Score:4, Insightful)
That was pretty much my reading too. I think the correct solution is to give in to the Christians wanting the state not to recognise gay marriage and go a step further - the state should not recognise any kind of marriage. If you want to sign a contract for shared ownership of possessions and to cohabit with someone, that's possible without marriage law. If you want to get this agreement blessed by your favourite religion, that's not the state's business.
Actually, it's absolutely the state's business. You're not seeking simply cohabitation or shared ownership, you're seeking a legal agency relationship that trumps the rights of blood relatives, allows for probate-free inheritance, etc. Since the state normally enforces probate and intestate succession, they absolutely must be involved in marriage. When the state is not involved - i.e. common law marriage - the couple does not get these probate benefits, nor do they get to be legal and medical proxies for each other.
The church has no business being involved, however. They perform weddings and join people in wedlock, which is a purely religious ceremony.
Re:Flawed marriage law - Google isn't helping much (Score:3, Insightful)
Either legalize same-sex marriage, or just do away with any kind of legal marriage at all. The latter is what I would do if I had my way. Why does the state meddle in what should be a commitment between two people?
Because the state is enforcing that relationship. If one spouse is in an accident and goes comatose, the other spouse is the medical and legal proxy and gets to decide whether or not to pull the plug, even over the wishes of blood relatives of the first spouse. Without marriage, that second spouse would not have rights that trump the rights of blood relatives. Same goes for probate-free inheritance and intestate succession. Marriage is not a "commitment between two people", it's a contract between two people and the state.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Usually leads to children" -> see Idiocracy
"and then pay taxes" -> look up "poverty" and the tax code
Anyway, that's certainly not the reason citizens would support such policy, that's just straight-up bigotry. Example, my father said he would move to a new state if his state legalized gay marriage. And there are a lot of others like him...
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:2, Insightful)
...how can anyone that appreciates the freedoms offered by our constitution and the rationale backing it in the declaration of independence, willfully discriminate against another based solely on private, personal preference?
My favourite example of this was watching the news during (iirc) the Prop 8 debate and seeing an interview with a black woman who was speaking out against gay marriage rights.
A black woman.
This woman has had thousands and thousands and thousands of people fight for her to have rights as a person _on two fronts_ - first as a woman and then as an African American - and she has the audacity to oppose the rights of anyone else?? The utterly disgusting hypocrisy of it infuriated me (and still does). I will never, ever understand how this woman was so profoundly ignorant as to not see the similarities between the _TWO_ movements that provided her with the rights she now enjoys and the movement to provide gays with the rights that they deserve. Human rights are human rights.
Regardless of your background, heritage, sex, religion, or whatever, anyone who opposes gay rights is a disgusting human. Period.
The woman I saw being interviewed simply added hypocrite to the list.
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No it is not, as the civil marriage laws have nothing relating to a religious observance in them.
In fact civil partnerships have absolutely no "standard" wording at all, unlike civil marriages, meaning you can actively denounce religion if you want and it is fine (as long as the registrar doesnt panic, that is....) - we were told we could write our entire service if we wanted.
Yes the nominal head is both State and Church, but the actual PM is purely a civil role.
thanks scrooge (Score:3, Insightful)
you know, some of us actually believe the point of life is not to labor as a wage slave. that if society were set up in such a way to maximize individual happiness instead of profit, corporations would take a dent, but capitalism would go right on ticking, and we would be happier people with richer lives. exactly what is wrong with that goal?
meanwhile, you seem wedded to the ravenous idea that toiling for the corporation should be the end-all consume-all point of life
"Everybody else at that company gets hurt, especially the substitute worker who'd really like to keep the job."
well yeah, if the point is to run at maximum capacity possible, all the time, like we are at war with something. there is no slack to pick up if there is no tension in the rope. relax the goddamn rope, you don't have to run full bore all the fucking time. go about your company's business leisurely, let things go a little slower, and calm the fuck down
if all your competitors labor under the same respect the individual's happiness rules, there's no competitive disadvantage
or, move to china, where the wage slaves are committing suicide in mass numbers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Employee_suicides_and_deaths [wikipedia.org]
and forming unions (in a communist country, irony)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/world/asia/21chinalabor.html [nytimes.com]
to agitate for the respect from the government and companies that i am agitating towards you: the individual's happiness is the paramount concern, not the fucking company
really, asshole
fuck you fucking corporatists,
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
The trolling GP states that homosexuality has "no biological or evolutionary purpose (other than to naturally remove each partners genes from the pool)", but does it?
Homosexuality appears all across human ethnic groups, I think at about the same kind of rate. Seeing as modern societies have only existed for a fraction of the time humans have existed, and an even smaller fraction of time that the homo genus has existed, I think it is probably pretty likely that homosexuality does serve some purpose. Maybe not directly for the homosexual individual, but for the species.
I think the purpose homosexuality serves is so that a group of humans (eg a tribe) will contain adults that are very unlikely to breed. If breeding humans with children from the group die, there are spare humans in the social group who can step in and do (more[1]) parenting. This means children of the breeding humans stand a better chance of making it to adult hood, and passing on their genes.
Seeing as how members of tribal-type societies are much more closely related to one another than more modern human societies, the homosexual individual's genes will get passed on to quite some degree when they help in the raising of children.
[1] Modern western societies are rather odd in their patterns of raising kids, where most of it is done directly by TV^H^H the parents, and specific institutions (schools). Other societies seem to have much raising of kids done by the extended family.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So Much For Employee Privacy! (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish. I joked with my wife about the tax benefits of our two kids. Being a math geek, she started to do the math taking into account the new birthdays, additional holiday gifts..on and on. Let's just say it didn't end up much of a benefit in the fiscal sense.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:2, Insightful)
Homosexuality isn't like robbery or assault, it doesn't affect anyone except for those that participate in it.
It affects the people who are offended by it.
Yes, just like desegregation affects racists who are offended by blacks.
Re:Well, heck! We can all be gay! (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, that's ALREADY the way it is!
You can be "secular married" by walking in front of a judge and signing a piece of paper. And indeed, if you're church married, after your church wedding you have to go to the courthouse to sign a legal marriage certificate.
But you can't do that if you're gay. The problem isn't even religion! Plenty of churches will gay marry a couple, so if all you want is the religious bit, you're fine. But if you want the legal status, you're fucked.
What gay people want is the right to visit their partners in the hospital, the right to deal with their estate, take care of their kids, all the shit that straight people get for free.
I'm not gay. Hell, I don't even have any gay friends who aren't total closet cases. But that this shit has managed to stay an issue for this long blows my fucking mind. It's pure discrimination, and it should not be fucking tolerated.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:1, Insightful)
Hetero rape is only frowned upon in the Bible if the man is raping a married woman.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
Silly. Most developed countries have trouble keeping their population steady without extra immigration. Hell, Russia was running a government thing a few years back that if you had a kid that was conceived inside a specific set of months, you got a free washing machine, or something similar.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:4, Insightful)
The New Testament has some pretty choice words for gay behavior, too. And early Christian writers were unanimous in their condemnation of homosexual sex. You really can't be gay and be a Christian, they're incompatible.
The easiest thing is for gays to wake up to this fact and abandon Christianity en masse and join a more tolerant religion. Or better yet, none at all.
(I say this as a former Christian who's now an avowed atheist. Once you really understand what religion preaches, there's really no point in continuing the charade; you just need to dump it completely.)
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
When I said "selective reading" I meant that they do not follow all the other laws laid down in the old testament.
Now of those passages New Testament none are from the 4 canonical gospels. They are from the pauline epistels which are letters by the first century church leader Paul to his churches.
Here's one, straight from Jesus' mouth: Mark 10:6-9
But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Taken alone, this doesn't prove homosexuality is wrong, but it does show that the 'opinion we held previously' seems to be God's opinion as well. I find it disingenuous to ignore this inherent blessing upon heterosexuality (and heterosexuality alone) when reading passages that may or may not apply to homosexuality. The passage might not say homosexuality is a sin, but I'm unaware of anywhere that says it isn't a sin. Personally, I give the benefit of the doubt toward Genesis' account that the suitable helper for Adam was neither animal nor another man, but woman.
YMMV
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think you appreciate what a huge step forward that was, in and of itself. The idea that human value came innately to all men regardless of privilege of birth was earth shattering in its time. Yes, it took a while to get people on board with the idea that other races had the same rights; and a while longer for women to join the club. But not knock the importance of what the Founders started just because they didn't go all the way.
Re:Flawed marriage law - Google isn't helping much (Score:3, Insightful)
Either legalize same-sex marriage, or just do away with any kind of legal marriage at all. The latter is what I would do if I had my way. Why does the state meddle in what should be a commitment between two people?
Because the state is enforcing that relationship. If one spouse is in an accident and goes comatose, the other spouse is the medical and legal proxy and gets to decide whether or not to pull the plug, even over the wishes of blood relatives of the first spouse. Without marriage, that second spouse would not have rights that trump the rights of blood relatives. Same goes for probate-free inheritance and intestate succession. Marriage is not a "commitment between two people", it's a contract between two people and the state.
That's the way it is now in your jurisdiction. Whether is should remain like that is debatable. In some jurisdictions, all those things can be signed without a marriage, and undone without a cumbersome, painful divorce.
Well, not really - you can (at some expense) have a will, and a living will, and a medical and legal proxy document, and have an executor for your probate, etc., etc. However, these can all be challenged by your heirs much easier than a marriage, primarily because they're more akin to two-party contracts, while a marriage is akin to a three-party contract - the two spouses and the state, who is a party and consents to take on certain obligations. Because of the state's participation, it's much easier to then bind the state to enforce your marriage against the wishes of your heirs.
Additionally, most people don't think about these things until they're impending. Do you have a will and the other documents? Do most cohabitating people, particularly those in their 20s or 30s? The real benefits of marriage are like insurance... you don't necessarily appreciate them until you need them, and by then it's too late.
Anyway, that's peripheral to my main point: that marriage law or lack thereof, should be the same for all couples, straight and same-sex.
Agreed... I'm just on the side that it should exist for everyone.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:1, Insightful)
Jesus was an asshole.
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:3, Insightful)
So do you believe it is always OK for businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexual preference, or only do so when it favors homosexuals? I strongly suspect that you are a hypocrite and would be protesting any stated policy that advocated paying homosexuals less than straights rather than more.
If that were the case, it would indeed be an ugly hypocrisy.
Of course, your inflammatory strawman argument is irrelevant to the present discussion. What Google is doing here is ensuring that same-sex couples receive the same benefits package for the same price as their heterosexual coworkers. At the end of the day, the straight couples and the gay couples get the same health care and enjoy the same take-home pay after taxes. What is unfair or discriminatory about that?
Surely you're not arguing that same-sex couples should pay higher taxes than heterosexual couples on identical benefits?
Re:Two wrongs don't make a right (Score:5, Insightful)
The other thing is that the couples end up more or less exactly where they would be were it not for a bunch of bigots refusing to grant equal rights under the law. Perhaps you should do some research rather than making bigoted claims over the internet. I assume that you're going to go back and ask David Duke what the rest of his argument goes like.
Re:Well, heck! We can all be gay! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think we need two words for marriage. There's Religious Marriage which involves going to a church/temple/whatever and having your priest/rabbi/whatever declare you husband and wife in the eyes of your religion's god/gods/goddess/etc. Then there's Civil Marriage which is a legal contract which grants spouses rights not normally granted to non-blood relatives (and, in fact, rights greater than blood relatives). The latter can be obtained during the course of a Religious Marriage or by simply seeing a Justice of the Peace who effectively stamps a few forms and says "you're married."
I don't think there should be any governmental pressures on Religious Marriage. If a church doesn't want to marry Tom and Joe or Mary and Jane then those couples can find another church that will or just not have a Religious Marriage. Meanwhile, Civil Marriage should have no limits so long as the two people being joined in marriage are consenting adults. So Tom and Joe should be able to get a Civil Marriage even if they've never set foot in a church.
The problem is that the word "marriage" has been used for both types of marriage up until now and neither side (Civil or Religious) is going to give it up for an alternative word.
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironically, you're begging the question (petitio principii--assuming the initial point) with your argument. You're saying that 1. the word sodomy (modern) means "unnatural sex," 2. the word derives from the Latin meaning "sin of Sodom," 3. therefore the people of Sodom practiced sodomy. There's a disconnect there because you're assuming that the "sin of Sodom" is "unnatural sex," but this is an unproven claim.
If the "sin of Sodom" is instead an extreme lack of hospitality, then the word sodomy should refer to that, but will still be used improperly to refer to "unnatural sex" (and homosexual sex in particular) because that is the common meaning. Just like begging the question.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:2, Insightful)
The basic story shows up in lots of other cultures and goes something like this:
That's the case for most stories in the Bible. The Bible, like almost all other important cultural works, pulled upon and drew from its predecessors for inspiration and content. There is very little, if any, original material (in terms of anecdotes) in the Bible. I'm not saying this to thrash the Bible, just to point out that it, like so many other books, is a great reference for the evolution and mixing of various human cultural themes.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, after all that, I figured those folks I'd talked to would change their mind. Did they? Nah. When it boiled down to it, after all that, I got this simple, one line answer:
I don't care what anyone says, homosexuality is just plain wrong. That's all there is to it!
So in the end, this kind of stubborn bigotry isn't founded on logic or intelligence. It's not well-reasoned or thought out. It's simple, biased, self-comforting, fear-of-change, stubbornness. Looking for an angle, or trying to figure out why folks want to put down homosexuals is folly for that reason alone. There is no logic to it. It's simple faith-based stupidity. This one simple fact is probably the single largest contributor to making me abandon my own faith a few years back. In the end, it was all just a bunch of silly crap.
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:1, Insightful)
life isn't fair.
-mom
P.S. because i said so.
Re:it hurts those it's intended to help (Score:3, Insightful)
producing offspring is much more important (in a long term kind of way). And a society who has foresight would be wise to protect this matter
OK, I agree, but that leads to a different conclusion. The mother should not go back to work. Her child needs her. No day-care worker will love the child like the mother, nor provide the discipline and emotional security that the child needs.
Having a kid is not "abandoning" your job
And neither is going off to Africa for half a year for missionary work? And neither is spending half a year at home playing Everquest? And neither is taking a job with the competition for half a year?
Why does everybody else get hurt
Financial harm to the company hurts all employees. Maybe it's the last straw leading to layoffs or even bankrupcy.
The substitute does not deserve the job. That's why she's a substitute. If she did, she'd HAVE said job.
Look, I've seen this. We all wanted to give the substitute the job because she was way better. Because of the law, we had to let a crummy employee have her job back. Of course, that just means we'll get rid of her in some other way.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:3, Insightful)
The value of marriage, compared to homosexuality, is that it usally leads to children, which will grow up and then pay taxes that are necessary sustain our standards of living in the long term.
Which is irrelevant, since homosexuals being married doesn't prevent any of that.
That's the basis for all pro-family / pro-marriage / etc. policies.
They're not "pro-marriage", they're "anti-gay". If they were just "pro-marriage", then they wouldn't give a damn about the gender of the two people getting married, since the likelihood of a married and unmarried gay couple producing children is the same, and has zero impact on whether or not a heterosexual couple will produce children (within marriage or otherwise).
It's not a moral debate, just a social one.
It's absolutely a moral debate. There's no social reason to prevent homosexuals from marrying.