Announcement

Collapse

Civics 101 Guidelines

Want to argue about politics? Healthcare reform? Taxes? Governments? You've come to the right place!

Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
See more
See less

Christian anti-SSM jeweler threatened after making rings for lesbian couple

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #46
    Originally posted by mossrose View Post
    It isn't about tax benefits, as the situation has proven in Canada for a couple of decades now.

    It is about a burning desire to have a horrendous lifestyle accepted and approved of by everyone, particularly those who have faith-based objections to that lifestyle. It is about a desire to have their sin legitimized, and those who refuse to accept it de-legitimized.

    They just want to couch it in terms that the general public politically-correct sheep will go along with.

    As a Christian I refuse to legitimize any same-gender anything, just as I refuse to legitimize any heterosexual activity outside of a monogamous marriage. It is sin. Has always been sin. Will always be sin, no matter what those who participate in it claim.

    Frankly, if the state says sodomites can marry, I don't much care, because the state has watered down everything that Christans stand for, and if sodomites want a piece of paper, who cares?

    But DON'T try to force me to deny my faith in the process.
    Yeah!
    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

    Comment


    • #47
      Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
      One of the black pastors at our Texas Pastor Council meeting on Wednesday talked about how angry he was that the GLBTQP folks are hijacking the Civil Rights issue for their own purposes. It was interesting to hear his perspective. Then, at our Baptist Area Board meeting yesterday, another black Pastor made the exact same points.
      I'd like to make note of this point, as well as this blog post and the fact that the Californian African-American community was one of the key constituencies behind prop 8, way back in the day, for further on in the conversation. I can't make the point I'd like to off of these points yet, but I think they're all relevant. Hopefully I can clarify why I think so fairly soon.

      Just keep on asking the right questions, Sam. I can't even say how much more interesting and fun conversations get when the person I'm talking to knows how to hone in on the right questions.
      Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

      Comment


      • #48
        Originally posted by Darth Ovious View Post
        Do you see the word tax there? The answer you are looking for is no. Extracting money through divorce isn't a tax. A very vital distinction you missed. So obviously it's not going to be counted when considering tax savings.
        My point was that the revenue generated by marriage licences and divorce proceedings isn't ever going to match the money spent on tax credits to married individuals. When you're talking thousands of dollars per year going out per married individual, marriage licences and court costs related to divorce proceedings aren't going to balance the books.

        So the idea of the State being interested in marriage as a way to extract money, whether through taxes or fees, doesn't hold up.
        "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

        Comment


        • #49
          Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
          The difference, and it is a very large one, is that the Virginia law, and those like it, CRIMINALIZED "white-colored" marriages.
          Why is that relevant? If Virginia simply had refused to grant or recognize interracial marriages, would that be acceptable today? Would you say that interracial couples do not, in fact, have the right to marry?
          "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

          Comment


          • #50
            Originally posted by Spartacus View Post
            Yep.

            http://www.luc.edu/faculty/twren/phi...3/macquote.htm

            By a practice I am going to mean any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended.
            Ye gods that's hard to parse!

            OK, so I think we're all agreeing that the practice of marriage has value in excess of the mere certification of the government and the financial benefits granted from that certification. So I think, to be fair to Starlight, you have to acknowledge that the hurtfulness of opposing or preventing the exercise of that marital practice very often goes beyond the mere certification and often reaches to the same deep meanings that we typically afford to marriage. So I think that original first paragraph has to go.

            The second paragraph:

            Originally posted by Spart
            The sort of language you employ is going to be used again-- is already being used-- with reference to incest and polygamy, and when those campaigns gain more steam, what will your counterargument be? How could you possibly stand against the weight of your own words about how there is nothing more hurtful, nothing that effects a more fundamental diminishment of their status as humans than denying them marriage?
            remains strong, I think. One does need a compelling reason why consenting adults, in one case, are to be afforded the legitimacy of "marriage" while others are left out. And the hurtfulness of exclusion cannot or should not be the determining factor. I happen to think that this is a problem both "traditionalists" and progressives but agree with the critique.
            "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

            Comment


            • #51
              Originally posted by Sam View Post
              My point was that the revenue generated by marriage licences and divorce proceedings isn't ever going to match the money spent on tax credits to married individuals. When you're talking thousands of dollars per year going out per married individual, marriage licences and court costs related to divorce proceedings aren't going to balance the books.
              And how do you work that out? I'm not sure about American law and it's tax credits for married individuals but they can't be saving as much as you're claiming. Thousands of dollars per year? How much does the average American pay in tax in the first place? You're link only conducted a study with a small sample size too. It was only based on 4 people.

              So the idea of the State being interested in marriage as a way to extract money, whether through taxes or fees, doesn't hold up.
              Divorces and weddings, etc, etc. Cost a lot of money. Child support costs a lot of money. Alimony costs a lot of money. I'm not sure how you think that tax credits could possibly save you more than these big pay outs.

              http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...Family-Courts#

              http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex...f-divorce.html

              https://www.census.gov/newsroom/rele.../cb12-109.html

              So it's a $50 billion a year industry. In the UK the average cost for a divorce is 44,000 pounds. Not sure how much American dollars it would translate into but you can see it's a lot and I actually expect the average to be more in America. The average child support payment per month is $430 as well, not sure about alimony but I can't imagine it wouldn't be drastically different.

              Also when divorced take into account that you will go back to the higher taxes as well. You only keep getting those tax breaks when you stay married.

              So if we take into account that in your example we assume a $2500 average per saving since in your example one person saved $1000 a year and the other saved $4000 per year, so we will assume the middle.

              The divorce rate is 50%. So that also means that 50% of people are married for life. Even if we assume 50 years of marriage then each person saves $125,000 over their lifetime for those that stay married for life. In order to save a divorce cost of say $50,000 then a person would need to be married for 20 years to do that.

              This is before we take into account child support payments and alimony payments. We have yet to also discuss payments for two sets of bills instead of one in terms of property costs i.e. House bills, council tax (not sure what your equivalent of this is).

              It's a well known fact that divorcee's are financially the worst off and this is the reason why. Divorce is big money.
              “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

              Comment


              • #52
                Originally posted by Darth Ovious View Post
                And how do you work that out? I'm not sure about American law and it's tax credits for married individuals but they can't be saving as much as you're claiming. Thousands of dollars per year? How much does the average American pay in tax in the first place? You're link only conducted a study with a small sample size too. It was only based on 4 people.



                Divorces and weddings, etc, etc. Cost a lot of money. Child support costs a lot of money. Alimony costs a lot of money. I'm not sure how you think that tax credits could possibly save you more than these big pay outs.

                http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...Family-Courts#

                http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex...f-divorce.html

                https://www.census.gov/newsroom/rele.../cb12-109.html

                So it's a $50 billion a year industry. In the UK the average cost for a divorce is 44,000 pounds. Not sure how much American dollars it would translate into but you can see it's a lot and I actually expect the average to be more in America. The average child support payment per month is $430 as well, not sure about alimony but I can't imagine it wouldn't be drastically different.

                Also when divorced take into account that you will go back to the higher taxes as well. You only keep getting those tax breaks when you stay married.

                So if we take into account that in your example we assume a $2500 average per saving since in your example one person saved $1000 a year and the other saved $4000 per year, so we will assume the middle.

                The divorce rate is 50%. So that also means that 50% of people are married for life. Even if we assume 50 years of marriage then each person saves $125,000 over their lifetime for those that stay married for life. In order to save a divorce cost of say $50,000 then a person would need to be married for 20 years to do that.

                This is before we take into account child support payments and alimony payments. We have yet to also discuss payments for two sets of bills instead of one in terms of property costs i.e. House bills, council tax (not sure what your equivalent of this is).

                It's a well known fact that divorcee's are financially the worst off and this is the reason why. Divorce is big money.
                Gotta read deep in that article, as it linked to a more intensive study piece at NYT, too:

                Source: The High Price of Being a Gay Couple. Bernard and Lieber. New York Times. 2009.10.02



                Our goal was to create a hypothetical gay couple whose situation would be similar to a heterosexual couple’s. So we gave the couple two children and assumed that one partner would stay home for five years to take care of them. We also considered the taxes in the three states that have the highest estimated gay populations — New York, California and Florida. We gave our couple an income of $140,000, which is about the average income in those three states for unmarried same-sex partners who are college-educated, 30 to 40 years old and raising children under the age of 18.


                Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.


                These numbers will vary, depending on a couple’s income and circumstance. Gay couples earning, say, $80,000, could have health insurance costs similar to our hypothetical higher-earning couple, but they might well owe more in income taxes than their heterosexual counterparts. For wealthy couples with a lot of assets, on the other hand, the cost of being gay could easily spiral into the millions.


                Nearly all the extra costs that gay couples face would be erased if the federal government legalized same-sex marriage. One exception is the cost of having biological children, but we felt it was appropriate to include this given our goal of outlining every cost gay couples incur that heterosexual couples may not.

                © Copyright Original Source



                And, again, the divorce doesn't really play into anything here. This HuffPo article puts it at $15k-$20k but we're talking about the difference between single tax filers and married tax filers, principally. Taxes are going to state and federal governments while divorce costs are going to state and county governments — and the biggest part of divorce costs are going to private attorneys and custody evaluators, anyway. The point is that the government is mainly offering up benefits for getting married and, either directly or indirectly, conferring penalties for non-married cohabitation.
                "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                Comment


                • #53
                  Originally posted by Sam View Post
                  Gotta read deep in that article, as it linked to a more intensive study piece at NYT, too:

                  Source: The High Price of Being a Gay Couple. Bernard and Lieber. New York Times. 2009.10.02



                  Our goal was to create a hypothetical gay couple whose situation would be similar to a heterosexual couple’s. So we gave the couple two children and assumed that one partner would stay home for five years to take care of them. We also considered the taxes in the three states that have the highest estimated gay populations — New York, California and Florida. We gave our couple an income of $140,000, which is about the average income in those three states for unmarried same-sex partners who are college-educated, 30 to 40 years old and raising children under the age of 18.


                  Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.


                  These numbers will vary, depending on a couple’s income and circumstance. Gay couples earning, say, $80,000, could have health insurance costs similar to our hypothetical higher-earning couple, but they might well owe more in income taxes than their heterosexual counterparts. For wealthy couples with a lot of assets, on the other hand, the cost of being gay could easily spiral into the millions.


                  Nearly all the extra costs that gay couples face would be erased if the federal government legalized same-sex marriage. One exception is the cost of having biological children, but we felt it was appropriate to include this given our goal of outlining every cost gay couples incur that heterosexual couples may not.

                  © Copyright Original Source



                  And, again, the divorce doesn't really play into anything here. This HuffPo article puts it at $15k-$20k but we're talking about the difference between single tax filers and married tax filers, principally. Taxes are going to state and federal governments while divorce costs are going to state and county governments — and the biggest part of divorce costs are going to private attorneys and custody evaluators, anyway. The point is that the government is mainly offering up benefits for getting married and, either directly or indirectly, conferring penalties for non-married cohabitation.
                  Like I mentioned before it was you that said tax, not me. I did not mention tax.
                  “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Originally posted by Darth Ovious View Post
                    Like I mentioned before it was you that said tax, not me. I did not mention tax.
                    I addressed more than just tax revenue or cost in that post.
                    "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Originally posted by Sam View Post
                      Why is that relevant?
                      it'd be like saying you don't have access to the VA because you aren't a veteran, but I do because I am. That's different than saying "If you try to use the VA, you will be jailed for a year"

                      If Virginia simply had refused to grant or recognize interracial marriages, would that be acceptable today?
                      There would be no reason. But that gets into state interest again, and I believe we've argued that to death. Interracial couples can reproduce (Notice I didn't say must, so please don't bring the strawman argument). Same sex couples simply can not.


                      Would you say that interracial couples do not, in fact, have the right to marry?
                      I would rather the government not be involved in marriage at all. But we need to identify WHY the government started licensing marriages to begin with. And we need to switch the burden of proof back to those who think they deserve the benefits that go along with government recognition. And that should rest solely on why the state licenses marriages to begin with. THAT is what has gotten lost in the last decade. And, as an aside, that is also why interracial marriages should still be allowed.

                      I'd like to address something else you said below:

                      One does need a compelling reason why consenting adults, in one case, are to be afforded the legitimacy of "marriage" while others are left out.
                      The law was never like that until recently. The compelling reason used to rest on the one demanding legitimacy. And they have nothing to offer to the state in order to justify their demands. And I believe they understood that, so they changed the narrative in the early 2000's to "why SHOULDN"T we have the right", switching the burden of proof to traditional marriage proponents while eroding the value that culture put on traditional marriage.

                      The "right to marry" is like the "right to use the VA". As long as you meet the requirements, the right is uncontested (with a few exceptions). But if you don't meet the requirements, then you don't have the right.
                      That's what
                      - She

                      Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                      - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                      I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                      - Stephen R. Donaldson

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Originally posted by Sam View Post
                        Ye gods that's hard to parse!
                        Yeah, when we went over it in a philosophy class I took, the prof referred to it as one of the worst sentences in all philosophy. If we pick it apart piece by piece, though, I think we'll have a much clearer understanding of all the considerations that go into a redefinition of marriage.

                        OK, so I think we're all agreeing that the practice of marriage has value in excess of the mere certification of the government and the financial benefits granted from that certification. So I think, to be fair to Starlight, you have to acknowledge that the hurtfulness of opposing or preventing the exercise of that marital practice very often goes beyond the mere certification and often reaches to the same deep meanings that we typically afford to marriage. So I think that original first paragraph has to go.
                        I admit it was an attempt at a reductio, but throwing that out also means throwing out the "gay marriage won't affect you" canard: if the institution of same-sex marriage is about social acceptance as much as legal privileges, then this isn't a question of constitutional law, but of public discourse. That people (on both sides) try to hide behind the legal argument alone, I think, holds us back from the conversations we need to be having.

                        The second paragraph:

                        remains strong, I think. One does need a compelling reason why consenting adults, in one case, are to be afforded the legitimacy of "marriage" while others are left out. And the hurtfulness of exclusion cannot or should not be the determining factor. I happen to think that this is a problem both "traditionalists" and progressives but agree with the critique.
                        A'ight, I'd like to suggest going back to the MacIntyre statement and trying to figure out 1. what MacIntyre means and 2. how the "traditional" and "revisionist" definitions of marriage interact with the various elements MacIntyre describes.
                        Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Originally posted by Sam View Post
                          I addressed more than just tax revenue or cost in that post.
                          So what? I already explained what I needed to explain. You seem to think that just because some of the money goes to other institutions then that means something.
                          “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            Originally posted by Spartacus View Post
                            Yeah, when we went over it in a philosophy class I took, the prof referred to it as one of the worst sentences in all philosophy. If we pick it apart piece by piece, though, I think we'll have a much clearer understanding of all the considerations that go into a redefinition of marriage.



                            I admit it was an attempt at a reductio, but throwing that out also means throwing out the "gay marriage won't affect you" canard: if the institution of same-sex marriage is about social acceptance as much as legal privileges, then this isn't a question of constitutional law, but of public discourse. That people (on both sides) try to hide behind the legal argument alone, I think, holds us back from the conversations we need to be having.



                            A'ight, I'd like to suggest going back to the MacIntyre statement and trying to figure out 1. what MacIntyre means and 2. how the "traditional" and "revisionist" definitions of marriage interact with the various elements MacIntyre describes.
                            A worthwhile exercise!

                            So here we have it again:

                            Source: Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd ed. Notre Dame University Press, 1997, p. 187.



                            By a practice I am going to mean any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended.

                            © Copyright Original Source



                            Going by everything prior to "with the result that ...", I would argue that we're best able to understand (or visualize) what MacIntyre is saying by comparing his definition of "a practice" to a Platonic form: the "form" of a practice is the activity itself and the "goods" are intrinsic properties of that form. Goods are more or less perfectly achieved as the activity more or less perfectly adheres to the "form" of the activity.

                            Going by everything following "with the result that", I would say that MacIntyre is saying that a person's ability to achieve excellence through an activity, as well as her very ability to recognize and understand "goods" and purposes through an ability, is likewise contingent on the perfection of the activity relative to it's perfect form.

                            Thoughts?
                            "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                            Comment


                            • #59
                              Originally posted by Darth Ovious View Post
                              So what? I already explained what I needed to explain. You seem to think that just because some of the money goes to other institutions then that means something.
                              My principal point, that married individuals are more likely to be a net cost to government finances, rather than a net gain, remains. You counter-argument requires treating divorce costs as though most of the money goes principally to court costs. In my experience (not divorce but family law), that's not the case and I doubt you'd find evidence of such costs exceeding the general tax benefits of marriage.
                              "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Originally posted by Sam View Post
                                My principal point, that married individuals are more likely to be a net cost to government finances, rather than a net gain, remains. You counter-argument requires treating divorce costs as though most of the money goes principally to court costs. In my experience (not divorce but family law), that's not the case and I doubt you'd find evidence of such costs exceeding the general tax benefits of marriage.
                                Like I keep mentioning it's you who brought tax up, not me. Your argument seems to suggest that because they give a tax break to married couples then that means they can't be guilty of extracting finances from them in the event of divorce afterwards. This is not true, as it doesn't take into account that in order to get those costs from divorce in the first place then people need to get married first. The tax benefits are only there to ensure people get married and have kids first before extracting the money from a divorced couple afterwards. After the divorce then multiple beneficiaries benefit from the situation.

                                http://www.forbes.com/2006/07/25/sin...0725costs.html

                                Add it all up, and Chestnut’s married clients shell out practically all of their monthly income on living expenses, scraping to save anything beyond a retirement plan contribution. The single earner, by contrast, socks away more than $300 per month, nearly 5% of his or her pay.
                                Overall single people are actually better off than married couples. The government have multiple ways in which they extract money from people so you have to admit that in order to give them this tax break you are talking about then they must extract more money in the first place to afford that. Considering that married couples are worse off than unmarried single people then they must bear the brunt of it.
                                Last edited by Darth Ovious; 05-22-2015, 07:30 PM. Reason: Grammar
                                “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

                                Comment

                                Related Threads

                                Collapse

                                Topics Statistics Last Post
                                Started by CivilDiscourse, Today, 09:58 AM
                                3 responses
                                12 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post CivilDiscourse  
                                Started by little_monkey, 03-27-2024, 04:19 PM
                                16 responses
                                194 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post One Bad Pig  
                                Started by whag, 03-26-2024, 04:38 PM
                                53 responses
                                419 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Mountain Man  
                                Started by rogue06, 03-26-2024, 11:45 AM
                                25 responses
                                114 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post rogue06
                                by rogue06
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 09:21 AM
                                33 responses
                                198 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Roy
                                by Roy
                                 
                                Working...
                                X