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:5, Interesting)
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. And, no, alternative sexual orientation is not a crime. The argument that a extending rights such as marriage to gay couples somehow lessens the social value of marriage is ridiculous. Following that same logical path, all those that do not practice christian marriage (Jewish, Islamic, Navajo) are also decreasing the social value of "christian" marriage.
I hope that Google's position in this matter will help influence other companies and eventually federal and state policies positively. If enough companies throw their weight behind this issue, it will become standard to offer a salary benefit for gay partners to cover the tax difference. Once it becomes standard, you can bet that companies will start lobbying congress to solve this problem in order to save them money.
Aside from the tax issues, 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? After all, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal."
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Informative)
It affects the people who are offended by it. They are offended--outraged even. And in a democratic society, these outraged people have a voice, and these voices in total are loud enough to force governments to punish the people who's behavior caused the offended people to become offended.
In fact, offense doesn't even really come into it. You can just have enough people who simply don't like another group and who will vote in punitive laws that will punish that group for simply existing. This is Democracy 101, otherwise known as the Tyranny of the Majority or at least the tyranny of the people who control the majority.
And this is largely how democracy is practiced today. And in case you think this only works one way, consider other things which have been banned/restricted like indoor smoking, fox hunting and chemical equipment ownership. In an age where the will of the people is absolute, people get what they vote for; or what other people paid to get them to vote for.
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: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm all for getting the State out of marriage. That should be a religious proposition, rather than a civil one. Benefits, taxes and the like should simply not take into account people's marital status, and instead should treat each adult as an independent entity. If you want to create a default "we share everything" contract, that allows for things like making decisions about childcare, powers of attorney and the like automatic, and that any set of people can go down to the justice of the peace and obtain for a nominal fee, I see no problem with that. It would provide the benefits marriage now provides, without the State getting involved in people's relationships.
However, your read of the Declaration is way off. It was an argument against private judgement, but an argument against class. By declaring that all men are created equal, the Declaration says that the circumstances of your birth (the wealth of your parents, the color of your skin, physical handicaps and so forth) do not change your value as a person. In other words, aristocracy is (if you accept the Declaration's self-evident truths) inherently a perversion of natural law, setting some above others by the mere circumstances of their birth.
The immediate problem that arises is "what about slavery?" If we're all supposed to be created equal, why did that not apply to slaves. The answer is not a moral answer, but a crass political answer. The economy of the South was predicated on slavery; take away slavery and the South would have sunk into deep poverty. (Even if not true, and I am not convinced that it is true, it was a view nearly universally held by Southerners in the 1780s, when the Constitution was written.) The question of allowing slavery was thus an existential question for the South: if slavery were not allowed, the southern states could not be part of the United States and continue to exist with any hope of prosperity. For the North, slavery was not an issue, simply because their economy was predicated on shipping and trade instead of pre-industrial agriculture. So for the northern states, the imperative was to hold the states together into a single country, to avoid the constant warfare that existed in Europe from the fall of Rome to the end of WWII. Essentially, the South would not yield on slavery, and the North would not yield on there being a single nation in the former colonies. The obvious compromise was to allow slavery, despite the fact that it was a contravention of the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
If you see in that the setup for the Civil War, congratulations. It has been said that all of American history can be summed up as "Pickett's Charge, the events leading to it and the consequences thereof." This misunderstanding of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, along with the death of Federalism (particularly subsidiarity) and the triumph of the French Enlightenment over the English Enlightenment, are some of the sadder of those consequences.
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: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.
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"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...
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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 no
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:4, Informative)
I say again, you are a pathetic and disgusting human being.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK (and I believe the rest of the EU) they DO tax sanitary products. It took quite a lot of campaigning to get them placed in the 'reduced' rate of tax (5%) rather than the 'luxury' rate (currently 17.5%, soon to be 20%) as well. See here [guardian.co.uk] for example.
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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
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:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Informative)
I always say, if people go to hell for sodomy, then you're going to hell for shaving and wearing a cotton-poly blended T-shirt - both things mentioned in Leviticus...I don't think it specifically mentions T-shirts though.
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.
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What most people don't know is that almost all churches have charters that deal with the complexities evident in the old testament. In those charters they directly or indirectly decide what they are going to accept from the old testament, so there is always interpretation and a desire to sculpt religion into something socially palatable. Do you think Christ was born on December 25?
Not arguing, just expanding.
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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.
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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.
There might be more truth in it than you know. If you place these scriptures in the context of the time when they were written. Christians were basically a new sect who stood up against 'the man', the Romans at that time. A lot of passages from the new testament are thinly veiled references to the evils of the Roman empire. These are the same Romans who we all know loved to pound ass, so it's fairly logical to also point this out as another 'evil' thing to do... it's a basic method of undermining your enemy
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To completely disregard the historic context of any written work is to limit yourself to not understanding any of the deeper meaning.
Look, the word of God is timeless, now get back to stoning blasphemers to death!
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not much to argue about the finer details of those particular scriptures; but I'd appreciate it if people recognized why Sodom and Gomorrah had to be expunged from the earth. The place was full of assholes! At one point they tortured some 11 year old girl to death for giving a starving man bread, because the girl was nice to someone (what a crime!). They tormented those in need. Any time someone new showed up, they turned a sadistic eye towards them immediately.
I think this is the most important lesson here. They didn't come to "have sex with" the newcomers; they came to brutally rape them.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Interesting)
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So how many of his women did he offer to you?
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Funny)
The passages in liviticus are surprisingly clear for the bible. The Sodom and Gomorrah story doesn't necessarily have anything to do with homosexuality though. Trying to rape gods kid would surely qualify for extermination even if it weren't homosexual rape.
This was actually a fun conversation I had with the local jehova's witness lady who seemed to think an unmarried guy living with female roommates was somehow at high risk for "catching gay" along with other seemingly incompatible sins.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:4, Interesting)
All Christians believe whatever they want, and justify it by selective reading of the Bible. Perhaps the fact that so many end up with "New Testament values of love and forgiveness" is comforting evidence that not everyone's inherent tendencies are towards violent opposition to people unlike themselves, but I don't think it has any bearing on what "correct" Christianity is.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Informative)
[Anti-gay Christians] base this on a selective reading of the Old Testament
Now, I fully agree with you that the majority of anti-gay Christians are anti-gays who use the above passages to justify their bigotry, but hey, it's called bigotry for a reason.
However, I'll have to challenge you to select other passages from the bible that contradict or refute the ones quoted above. Sure, that filthy hippy Jesus waffled some peacenik tree hugging propaganda about loving and forgiving sinners, but I don't recall him saying that it wasn't a sin.
Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't remember exactly how it came up, but a particular jewish friend of mine and I ended up talking about the Lot story.
She was stunned to hear how Christians taught the story and pulled up the Torah, read the passage and pretty much translated it word for word the way I had it in the English. Then she became absolutely adamant that the intended meaning was that the men from the town wanted to beat the men up, not have sex with them.
Her claim was that it was not about homosexuality but a city with gangs that didn't like outsiders. I can't say as I have studied it enough to have my own opinion, but that was her take on it.
-Steve
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Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, that filthy hippy Jesus waffled some peacenik tree hugging propaganda...
Actually, Jesus was a tree killer, not a tree huger.
Matthew 21:18: Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered.
Just sayin
God Hates Figs (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:4, Interesting)
You insensitive clod.
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:4, Funny)
Yes - and they all caught Gomorrahrear.
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.
God hates shrimp (Score:5, Funny)
Re:God hates shrimp (Score:5, Funny)
Re:God hates shrimp (Score:4, Funny)
Re:God hates shrimp (Score:5, Funny)
As long as you're not watching pr4wn
Re:So Much For Employee Privacy! (Score:5, Informative)
The employee would have to declare that they need domestic partner health benefits. Google isn't "snooping", it's information the employee is providing.
If they qualify for domestic partner health benefits, I should think so.
Re:So Much For Employee Privacy! (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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Indeed - I think it would be much better to offer the extra benefit to any unmarried partners. It solves several problems:
* It's not then unfair to people who are unmarried with opposite sex partners.
* It avoids the sticky question of whether this might be illegal discrimination. It's an interesting problem - whilst it's trying to address the original discrimination that exists, which I think is good for them to do, it's now reasonable for someone to argue that how they pay their employees is discrimination
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.
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Re:Why so discriminating? (Score:4, Insightful)
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your reasonning
1- assumes children is the only thing people can contribute to society. How about the guy that decrypted Nazi communications in WW2, and so on ?
2- assumes all children are a good thing. They may all have the potential to be, but in the end, some are clearly not, and not only will not contribute anything to your retirement fund, but will take a faire bit from it, or kill you.
3- does not handle the case of heterosexuals who can't have kids.. same treatment for them, then ?
4- forgets that some o
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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?
example for those who didn't get the point (Score:3, Informative)
A woman gets one or two periods, and then she's pregnant.
Roughly 9 months go by with nothing.
A baby is delivered. I suppose you could call that a period, maybe.
Breastfeeding suppresses the menstrual cycle. The woman can almost certainly go 6 months without a period, and stands a decent chance of going 18 months or more.
So there you go. Regular periods are NOT natural. They are a side effect of birth control.
Each kid born, and each kid nursed, reduces the risk of breast cancer. It's a 5% drop and a 7% drop,
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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.
Still unfair.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Still unfair.. (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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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: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.
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.
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Re:Still unfair.. (Score:4, Interesting)
In your country, a heterosexual couple can actually get married.
A gay couple can't, the unmarried heterosexual couples are depriving themselves of the benefit this type of contract provides by choice.
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Unmarried people in the US are taxed extra? Why?!
The conservatives in the UK have been going on about bringing back tax breaks for married couples (and civil partnerships, but those aren't available to heterosexual couples here yet - I'm also one of those people that doesn't agree with marriage but support the idea of civil unions) - I really don't see what the hell marriage is supposed to achieve, and add to that the UK having the highest divorce rate in europe I don't see any form of tax break as going to
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.
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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 ap
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: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.
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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:Still unfair.. (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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Absolutely untrue. Common law marriages are not recognised for tax purposes, but they are (in certain situations) recognised for deciding ownership of things if you split up.
No, the term does not exist (in the UK), splitting property simply comes down to what you can prove. You paid for it by yourself, it's yours. You paid jointly without something to show how much came from each person you own it jointly. The point is cohabiting with someone you consider your partner confers no benefits or rights beyond cohabiting with friends or random people when you were a student. If you can find anything to the contrary I'll happily recant.
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Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Wait, you're not gay and don't care about gay rights unless you're on the losing end? Hypocrites.
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Paying straight people less, lawsuit? (Score:4, Insightful)
consistent logical argument
US politics abandoned that quaint idea decades ago.
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Minors can't (by definition) render legal consent so I fail to see the point you're trying to make.
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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.
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Five months maternity leave? (Score:4, Interesting)
From the article:
Working for a company as rich as Google comes with an incredible number of fringe benefits: the free food, the free laundry, the doctor on duty at company headquarters and the impressive five months of maternity leave with full pay and benefits, to mention a few.
Five months is impressive? 26 weeks (almost 6 months) is a legal right [direct.gov.uk] over here. In some countries it's much, much more [wikipedia.org]!
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).
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: (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 becaus
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 hur
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Norway: ONE YEAR! Thats right, one year on your ass if you pop one out. And if that's not enough, we got paternity leave too. Daddy gets to take time off! It is teh win.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One man's benefit is other man's discrimination (Score:3, Informative)
Well, this is all in the eye of the beholder:
- Gay couples pay extra tax
vs.
- Non-gay couples get tax benefit
Or
- Non-Gay employees are negatively discriminated
vs.
- Gay employees are compensated
Google has no gay employees (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (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 commu
Re:Well, heck! We can all be gay! (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Well, heck! We can all be gay! (Score:4, Informative)
I think we need two words for marriage.
We already have them. There's "marriage", a contractual relationship between two consenting adults and the state that has existed for thousands of years. There's also "wedlock", a religious institution. You can be married without ever entering a church or temple, but you are not wed. Similarly, you can be wed by a priest but if you never visit a town hall to sign the certificate, you're not married.
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.
Not true. The term "marriage" has only been used interchangeably with "wedlock" since the Council of Trent, during which, in response to their declining power, the church decided to take over many aspects of the secular government. We should restore "marriage" to its original meaning, bereft of religious interference.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You really want to be gay-for-pay [wikipedia.org] ?
Re:Andrew (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, why not? We tax alcohol and tobacco too. Are you suggesting that this is a sin tax error?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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: (Score:3, Informative)
Marriage was a civil instritution first, long before it was religious.
Re: (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 peopl