Gay rights leads to discrimination against Christians.

I agree and that reasoning is that those who have the potential for procreation in and of themselves should be allowed to receive marriage benefits. That excludes homosexuals.

No no no. THEY didn't bring a baby into this world. One of them and someone else of the opposite sex who is not part of their marriage brought a baby into this world.

 

Your deliberately cramped reading of the reason for the benefits is invalid. If the goal is "more kids", then placing the artificial "in and of themselves" qualifier is invalid. You want more kids; why do you care precisely how they come to be?

Irrelevant. The baby would not exist were it not for this gay couple wanting a child. That's what you want, right? More kids? This meets your standard, and thus should be eligible for tax benefits.

 

That's absurd. That's like saying "we're only going to subsidize the R&D of a new drug AFTER somebody has already come up with it".

You would have an argument if every time someone tried to produce a baby, they produced a baby. But because it's not a guaranteed process then we are subsidizing the attempt to procreate.

Regardless, again, AT BEST you have an argument for why heterosexuals should not receive benefits. But you have no argument whatsoever as to why homosexuals should.

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It's not deliberately cramped. Which is nothing more than an assertion that procreation was simply devised as a reason to deny homosexuals marriage. Procreation and Marriage have been linked FAR before homosexual marriage EVER became an issue.

They can want a child all they want to. But they can't produce a child without going outside of their own marriage. As such their MARRIAGE does not qualify for the benefits.

 

As I've already pointed out, your R&D analogy is spurious. This is a *production* question.

Nonsense. I keep giving you example after example of actual economic behavior that disagrees with you.

Look at salespeople who are paid purely on commission. For every 10 sales they attempt to make, they may succeed in making one. They are paid for that one success, not the nine failures.

There is no need to incentivize a process when you can incentivize a result. You are advocating an extremely inefficient method of incentives.

But as I point out, if your goal is to simply encourage procreation, then you should be happy when a gay couple causes a child to exist that wouldn't exist otherwise. The "in and of themselves" qualifier is not only nonsensical, it's counterproductive to your stated goal.

Now look at the logical knot you've gotten yourself into.

You claim that your goal is to encourage procreation.

But you've now set up a subsidy system where you're subsidizing straight couples who cannot have children, while refusing to subsidize gay couples who are bringing kids into the world that wouldn't otherwise exist.

Nice work.

 

That's a load of BS. Name ONE product that we manufacture that, given all available resources and all processes, still might not produce the desired product.

That's not manufacturing or creating a product. The reason they're paid that way is because they DON'T necessarily have all the available materials required. Sales people may not have a customer that actually wants to buy. This is COMPLETELY different than producing a child.

That's absurd. You continue saying the gay couple causes the child to exist. And the gay couple does NOT cause the child to exist. Wanting a child does not produce a child, no matter how much gay people want it to be so. It's not nonsensical because the gay couple is INCAPABLE of producing the child. Period.

We're subsidizing the straight couples who cannot have children because it is an invasion of privacy to dive through their medical records and because it's too costly, inefficient and ineffective to test everybody. Furthermore, there is not one gay couple in the history of mankind that has brought a kid into the world. Not one.

They may provide the impetus but they are NOT producing a child. No matter how badly you want to manipulate it.

 

Look up the concept of "yield" in manufacturing. There are always errors in any given production batch.

It's particularly high in computer chips, for example, where it's not unusual for 40% of chips to be defective and unusable, and it can be as high as 70% or more, especially with newer chips.

Yes, it is.

You're on the wrong side of logic here, and you still have the problem that your proposed system ends up incentivizing the OPPOSITE of what you claim to want.

Would this child exist if the gay couple had not chosen to go through the artificial insemination process? No.

Therefore, a child exists that would not otherwise exist. This is what you claim to want.

Now you're being disingenuous. Since all we really need to incentivize people to have kids is a "baby bonus", and that's neither difficult nor invasive: it's simply, "Did you give birth to or adopt a child?"

If your goal is simply to produce more kids, it is contradictory, inefficient and unnecessary to incentivize marriage. And if you're going to incentivize marriage anyway, it is nonsensical to set up a system that subsidizes non-child-bearing straight couples while refusing to subsidize gays with children.

If a gay couple, by paying for artificial insemination, brings a child into the world who wouldn't otherwise exist, how does that not meet your stated goal? Your artificial fixation on methodology is really starting to bite you in the ass.

 

And I'll ask you the same thing I asked the other lady... Should the "farmer" who is producing NOTHING get the same subsidy as the farmer who is producing vegetables?

 

Not if the goal is more corn -- or kids, in this case. Which is why your plan to subsidize marriage in order to encourage procreation (rather than encouraging procreation directly with a "baby bonus") makes no sense, and even within that nonsensical structure, your plan to subsidize infertile couples, while refusing to subsidize gay couples that are actually causing the population to increase, is perverse, incentively speaking.

 

Actually, no - it isn't. If the circuit courts all end up agreeing with each other, the need for the Supreme Court to step in diminishes dramatically.

Really? You're pretending to speak for "most gay marriage advocates" now? Regardless, those advocates that say so are equally wrong.

I'm not. You are. We can do this ridiculousness all day long, but let's not.

Federalism isn't just a synonym for "states rights". Any particular flavor of federalism must be understood in the context of how powers are allocated between the federation and its members. And so I am correct, this case was about defining where the limitations of the federal government stand concerning marriage - an area of law where states have considerable, but not absolute power. This ruling further defined that division of powers. The ruling was not, however, about limiting the reach of the Constitution by giving states absolute power to regulate marriage. It was not about taking away the power of the judicial branch to interpret and apply the Constitution to controversies of law connected to state powers. The case was a challenge to federal law, not state laws. The case was about determining the scope of federal power, as manifested in a federal law. It was not about determining the scope of state powers manifested in state laws.

If you think federalism means the states have the last word on same-sex marriage recognition, you're not only dead wrong, but you don't really understand federalism, either.

Roberts didn't write the DOMA decision. Kennedy did, and it's his words that are controlling here, not Roberts'. You can worship at the alter of the dissenting justices all you like, but it won't change the principles on which the case was decided, namely these:

The case turns on an interpretation of the protections provided by the 5th amendment. And since we're talking about the scope of federal law, the ruling only applies to marriages made lawful by the state.

So yes, federalism - just not the way you (or Roberts) choose to spin it. The facts of the actual case matter, and their context is that of a marriage recognized by the state. The ruling doesn't answer the question of what happens when a state denies recognition of a same-sex marriage as a matter of state law. It doesn't address with any precision the scope of state powers, because they are not part of the challenge brought before the court in the Windsor case.

So it's a bit ridiculous to look at this ruling and then make a claim that it telegraphs the Court's intention to uphold state bans on recognizing same-sex marriages, based on federalism or anything else. If you're reading Roberts' dissent in an attempt to figure out what the Court will do, you're even less likely to arrive at the correct answer, as the dissenters are on the losing side of the DOMA decision, and their dissents control absolutely nothing.

 

You're attempting to solve a problem that doesn't exist. We are suing for civil recognition of our marriages, not religious recognition or performance of any religious rite.

And that is a load of bull feathers.

 

Those situations are already handled in the tax code. A single grandparent raising a grandchild can a) claim the child as a dependent, and b) claim head of household. In the case of the atheist couple raising 3 kids, they can alternate in years who claims the children as dependents and who gets head of household. It's not as clean as being married and just filing jointly, but it is a workaround that is allowable.

Artificial insemination applies equally to heterosexual couples as well as homosexual couples. In fact, most alternate forms of conception and birth (surrogacy) apply equally to homosexual couples as well as heterosexual couples.

Your major flaw in your thinking is equating marriage and raising of children as a simple cost/benefit calculation on the part of society. It's not. It goes much deeper than that. And the courts are smart enough to see through that simple-minded thinking.

 

Almost Everything You've Been Told About The Idaho Wedding Chapel Story Is A Lie

The religious right is spewing hate and lies, claiming that two ministers are being forced to marry same-sex couples--even claiming the ministers have been arrested. How is this possible?

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is a right-wing Christian law firm created by the same folks who brought you anti-gay groups like the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Campus Crusade for Christ, and Coral Ridge Ministries, among others.

Now, the ADF has filed suit in Idaho, claiming two ministers who own a wedding chapel have licensed it as a religious business and therefore should be exempt from their local anti-discrimination ordinance.

The ADF claims that last Friday the Knapps "respectfully declined" to perform a same-sex wedding "and now face up to 180 days in jail and up to $1,000 in fines for each day they decline to perform that ceremony."

Having read the City of Coeur d'Alene's anti-discrimination law, I am of the opinion that the fine is $100 to $1000 per instance, not per day, and only if the City chooses to impose a fine at all.

A story Monday at the right-wing American News is titled: "City Arrests Pastors For Refusing To Perform Gay Weddings."

That's a lie.

A story at what appears to be Herman Cain's website, is titled, "Idaho city tells pastors: Celebrate gay weddings or face fines, jail time."

That's a stretch.

It has one word in its first sentence: "Fascism."

Bakers, photographers and florists are being forced to shut down their businesses unless they accede to demands that they join in the celebration of gay "marriages," [sic] but so far no one has faced jail time for putting commitment to the Word of God ahead of the demands of homosexuals and their cultural champions.

"We have never threatened to jail them, or take legal action of any kind," said city spokesman Keith Erickson.

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovemen..._in_the_idaho_for_profit_wedding_chapel_story

 

So an infertile heterosexual couple who use artificial insemination do NOT qualify for marriage benefits according to you.....

You sure are into that "breeding defines humans" trash....

 

Wtf have atheists got to do with it ????????????????????

 

Atheists or anyone who is not married in church are not married in the eyes of god. No matter that they are married in the eyes of the government. Don't you know nothing?

 

And therein lies the central problem. The Religious Nazis think they "own" marriage. That it ONLY exists as a religious sacrament. They, of course, are wrong, but that IS what they think, and is at the very core of why they object so vociferously.

 

I initially thought it was a typo, but it's spelled guaranteed not 'gaurenteed'

Just saying.

 

False analogy. Procreation is not a requirement of marriage. We don't "pay" married couples in the first place, let alone for procreating.

 

It's what you suggest we do by "subsudizing" infertile heterosexuals.

 

Except your tryi to completely ignore the fact that the SCOTUS chose not to take appeals from lower court in six other states this month. Letting stand the lower court rulings making he bans on same sex marriage unconstitutional in six states.

Face it, your trying to interpret the DOMA case in a way that it is not meant to be.

AKA your grasping at straws where there are none.

It's over. Same sex marriage will be legal in all fifty states before he end of the decade.

 

Yes! There are way too many religious zealots who think/believe they own/control the world or reality itself.
I'm a spiritual person myself, but the abject fundamentalism and various neuroses which some people exude... keeps me far away from "religion" per se.

 

Two Ministers Claim They Could Face 180 Years In Jail For Refusing To Do Gay Weddings http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/25/gay-marriage-jail_n_6044214.html

They are lying! There are trying to get as much mileage out of this as they can to stoke the fears of those opposed to equality!

 

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/...r-gives-gays-superior-rights-over-christians/

This is nothing more than a manufactured nonsensical bovine excrement issue. There are the people who bloviate about how Christians are losing their right, while they set out to find a moronic way to persecute transgender people. This is the big issue:

“

These people are apparently so ignorant that they thing that transgender people just wake up one morning and decide to live as a member of the opposite sex? They apparently don’t get that a transsexual identifies as the gender that they want to be, but may not yet be. Would they prefer for instance, that a biological male who is dressed as a woman use the men’s room? How would it be enforced? I don’t think that they thought much about it nor do they care about the implications. They’re just paranoid and hysterical and will try anything to deny LGBT people rights. The rhetoric is astounding!

 

Gay rights does not lead to discrimination against Christians. There are Christians who will scream about their religious rights anytime that rights are granted to gays, and then there are the enlightened Christian as shown here who understand that everyone can be a winner.

 

As I recall Arizona tried this and it created such a excrement eruption ((*)(*)(*)(*) storm) that the strident anti gay governor, Jan Brewer backed off. It will be interesting to see what happens here.