Marriage Debate

HeavyAaron said:
For the purpose of showing that your assertion was flat out wrong. Again, I'm happy to use another trait which fits the bill of being innate and a vice. How many times must I reiterate these things? If I get bored, maybe I'll count.

Aaron
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Excuse me, I at no time suggested that all things natural are good. We've already addressed that cannard earlier in this thread. It would behoove you to improve your reading retention.
 
Meadmaker said:
It's simply unsupportable. The available research indicates that there is a genetic component to whatever it is that makes someone a homosexual. However, are you born a homosexual? No one knows. Are you born with genes that make you more likely to become homosexual? Research suggests that you are. Are there other factors that influence someone's sexual orientation? Research is inconclusive.
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How can these words leave your fingertips, and yet you areunable to understand them? If there is shown to be a genetic component, then yes, one can be born gay.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
How can these words leave your fingertips, and yet you areunable to understand them? If there is shown to be a genetic component, then yes, one can be born gay.
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Your assertion was that homosexuality can't be a vice, because people are born that way. Aaron noted that people can be born with vices. I noted that it is not known whether people are born gay.


I am extremely confident that there is a genetic component to height. However, not all people who are born with genes that predispose them to being tall will end up tall. A lot of things can happen along the way that makes them stay short. Likewise, a fair amount of research indicates people can be born with a genetic predisposition to being gay, but that does not mean they will end up being gay. Science doesn't know exactly what factors, including genetics, play a role in determining sexual orientation.

And people aren't born tall, either.
 
Terry said:
I claim that it is irrelavant whether homosexuality is genetic, environmental, or a choice. It is consensual behavior between adults, and society has no logical reason to penalise it.
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I agree with that sentiment!
 
HeavyAaron said:
For the umteenth time, here is the assertion I disagree with:



This was I.D.'s reply to Hunster.

I am saying that this assertion would apply to pedophilia (i.e. it is a trait that a person is born with) and yet it's a vice. Therefore to claim that a born in trait is a vice cannot be prima facia absurd.

I am NOT supporting the notion that homosexuality is a vice. I am ONLY saying that because a characteristic is a trait one is born with is not evidence that it's NOT a vice. There is nothing absurd about the notion that a vice may be something someone is born with.

I seriously think I've been clear about this. Yet only Scott seems to understand what I'm saying.

Aaron
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Being born a pedophile is not a vice. Predating on children is. Were you cognizant of the distinction?
 
Equating the desire of homosexual to recive legal recognition of their marriages with the legalized marijuana movement in order to discredit it, as though a person's sexuality, they way they were born, is some sort of vice is absurd.
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Your assertion was that homosexuality can't be a vice, because people are born that way.
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I did not say that.
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?

Unless the “the way they were born” was not intended as an explanation of why a person’s sexuality is not a vice, I think you did say that. Did you mean to say something else?
 
Meadmaker said:
?

Unless the “the way they were born” was not intended as an explanation of why a person’s sexuality is not a vice, I think you did say that. Did you mean to say something else?
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Meadmaker, for the last time, the way a person's sexuality was made when they were born makes niether inately good, nor inately bad, the same wya that being born a red head is niether inately good nor inately bad.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Meadmaker, for the last time,
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I'll believe that when I see it.

the way a person's sexuality was made when they were born makes niether inately good, nor inately bad, the same wya that being born a red head is niether inately good nor inately bad.
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I agree, and I can't speak for Huntster, but I'll bet he does, too. It's great to see such agreement.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
How can these words leave your fingertips, and yet you areunable to understand them? If there is shown to be a genetic component, then yes, one can be born gay.
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So, if there is a genetic components that makes it more likely to eventually develop Alzheimer's disease, one can be born suffering from Alzheimer's?

There is a genetic component to just about every human trait, from intelligence to left-handedness. That doesn't mean that one will even become a highly intelligent left-handed alzheimer-suffering homosexual (say) merely because one is born with a gene combination that makes it more likely, let alone be born like that.

We are not a tablua rasa at birth, for sure, but neither are we set in stone.
 
Skeptic said:
So, if there is a genetic components that makes it more likely to eventually develop Alzheimer's disease, one can be born suffering from Alzheimer's?

There is a genetic component to just about every human trait, from intelligence to left-handedness. That doesn't mean that one will even become a highly intelligent left-handed alzheimer-suffering homosexual (say) merely because one is born with a gene combination that makes it more likely, let alone be born like that.

We are not a tablua rasa at birth, for sure, but neither are we set in stone.
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And it would be absurd to punish someone for developing alzheimer's diesease.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Being born a pedophile is not a vice. Predating on children is. Were you cognizant of the distinction?
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Considering I harped on the difference, yeah, I'm familiar with it.

And not everyone would agree with the first statement. But if that's your take then your attack on Hunster was unfounded for ANOTHER reason. Unless homosexuals come out of the womb having sex, then homosexuality, even for Hunster, would not be a vice. I.e. by YOUR definition they aren't "born with it" in the sense that they aren't born acting on it.

Aaron
 
Money.

HeavyAaron said:
I would still be interested if you have them with little effort.

Aaron
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Okay, I found all 3 web-accessible versions of those studies on the economics showing a net savings for the taxpayer if SSM were allowed. The first is for the entire US, the second for Ca, and the third for NJ (links to their web locations are at the bottom).

I don’t have time to make a whole formal post of it so I’ll just post some excerpts (bolds are mine):

From the Congressional Budget Office (1):
On US tax revenue:
On balance, legalization of same-sex marriages would have only a small impact on federal tax revenues, CBO estimates. Revenues would be slightly higher: by less than $400 million a year from 2005 through 2010 and by $500 million to $700 million annually from 2011 through 2014. Those amounts represent less than 0.1 percent of total federal revenues.
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On the total US budget:
In some cases, recognizing same-sex marriages would increase outlays and revenues; in other cases, it would have the opposite effect. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that on net, those impacts would improve the budget's bottom line to a small extent: by less than $1 billion in each of the next 10 years (CBO's usual estimating period). That result assumes that same-sex marriages are legalized in all 50 states and recognized by the federal government.
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From the study on California’s domestic partner’s law (2):
In conclusion, the positive impacts of AB 205 on means-tested benefit programs and tax revenues from tourism will outweigh a loss in income tax revenues and insignificant costs associated with the State's court system, State employee benefits, and administrative costs. The net impact of AB 205 on California's budget will be a positive impact of $8.1 to $10.6 million each year.
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NOTE: this 8 to 10 mil savings for California includes an estimated 3 mil increase in tourism (Got to wonder how much San Fran made with their noble civil disobedience / lawless publicity stunt?). Still, that strikes me as unreliable and, of course, totally void if many other states start offering the same; I’d subtract it out, down to 5-7 mil.

From the New Jersey study (3):

The only significant fiscal effects of the DPA will be on 1)
expenditures for state public benefits programs, 2) expenditures for state employee benefits and 3) revenues from the transfer inheritance tax. We find that the savings from means-tested benefit programs will far outweigh any increased expenditures for state employee benefits and any loss in inheritance tax revenues. We estimate, conservatively, that the net impact of the DPA on New Jersey's budget will be over $61 million in savings each year.
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No tourism in this one that I can see but it was conducted by an economist from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, so extra scrutiny should likely be applied. Not that I’ve found anything wrong with the study or want to tarnish the man’s character, but I know it’s easier to find reliable facts when I don’t care to find particular “facts”.

References:

1. “The Potential Budgetary Impact of Recognizing Same-Sex Marriages”, Congressional Budget Office, http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5559&sequence=0.

2. "Equal Rights, Fiscal Responsibility: The Impact of A.B. 205 on California’s Budget," by M. V. Lee Badgett, Ph.D., IGLSS, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, and R. Bradley Sears, J.D., Williams Project, UCLA School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles, May 2003. http://www.iglss.org/media/files/wppolicystudy.pdf.

3."Supporting Families, Saving Funds: A Fiscal Analysis of New Jersey’s Domestic Partnership Act," by Badgett and Sears with Suzanne Goldberg, J.D., Rutgers School of Law-Newark, December 2003.) http://www.iglss.org/media/files/DPA_final.pdf.
 
So, more people get married, and government revenues go up, while government spending goes down.

That's a good thing, but while we're at it, someone might want to discuss the "benefits" that married couples get. It seems they are paying more and receiving less than if they were single.

(Doesn't surprise me a bit, but it's odd how that myth stays in place.)
 
Meadmaker said:
So, more people get married, and government revenues go up, while government spending goes down.

That's a good thing, but while we're at it, someone might want to discuss the "benefits" that married couples get. It seems they are paying more and receiving less than if they were single.

(Doesn't surprise me a bit, but it's odd how that myth stays in place.)
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Well, many of the benefits of marriage don't really "cost" the government anything. Automatic next of kin status, hospital visitation rights, the ability for one spouse to refuse to testify against the other, and access to the large body of legal case law surrounding marriage can be of enormous value to a couple, but is effectively free as far as government funding is concerned.
 
Meadmaker said:
So, more people get married, and government revenues go up, while government spending goes down.

That's a good thing, but while we're at it, someone might want to discuss the "benefits" that married couples get. It seems they are paying more and receiving less than if they were single.

(Doesn't surprise me a bit, but it's odd how that myth stays in place.)
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This is not a zero-sum game. Radnom is right. Extending these rights and privilages costs nothing.
 
According to what Scot posted, having gays get married is a money-maker for the government. So where is my tax break I'm supposed to get because I'm married? Also, according to what Scot posted, government spending will go down as a result of allowing gay marriage. So, where are all the goodies I'm supposed to get as a result of being married? The point is that the economic "benefits" of marriage are illusory. If you single people expect tax breaks and government goodies as a result of getting married, don't bother. I'm still waiting.
 
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