Supreme Court to hear arguments on same sex marriage

• gut

  The CA case at least appears to focus on benefits. I'm not sure how you can deny benefits to a protected class - change "gay" to "black" and it seems kind of a no-brainer decision.
  
  Whether there should still be a deduction/benefit for marriage is a completely different discussion - I'm not a big fan of subsidizing DINK's.
• ts1227

  

  gut;1413521 wrote:The CA case at least appears to focus on benefits. I'm not sure how you can deny benefits to a protected class - change "gay" to "black" and it seems kind of a no-brainer decision.
  
  Whether there should still be a deduction/benefit for marriage is a completely different discussion - I'm not a big fan of subsidizing DINK's.

  
  There should be no financial benefits for marriage anyway. Everyone should have to file individual returns. I'd say government needs out of the marriage game completely, but then it gets really screwy with next of kin rights and financial shit so you can't do that.
  
  So long as the government recognizes marriage, they really aren't in a position to discriminate. A church can not recognize it all they want, but in the eyes of the law I don't see how it can continue to not be OK
• gut

  ccrunner609;1413532 wrote:this should be left to states

  Yeah, but as with Jim Crow laws the states don't get to willy-nilly discriminate.
  
  Interesting to me that it seems a huge % of gay rights activists are focused on the benefits. Call it a civil union and confer the benefits and this issue mostly goes away, IMO.
  
  The entitlements and benefits are really about family, anyway, so my solution would be to eliminate the marriage benefit and maybe increase the child credits. Why should a married couple with no kids receive favorable tax treatment over a single person with no kids? That law was written when married women were not a major participant in the workforce, and as such is grossly outdated.
• gut

  ts1227;1413534 wrote:There should be no financial benefits for marriage anyway.

  I agree, but can you imagine the shit-storm if they tried to change that law? I could see Rand Paul taking it on, though. :thumbup:
  
  I wonder how much revenues we would be talking if everyone had to file an individual return...
• sleeper

  

  Agreed with no marriage benefits; gay or not.
• HitsRus

  

  The entitlements and benefits are really about family, anyway, so my solution would be to eliminate the marriage benefit and maybe increase the child credits. Why should a married couple with no kids receive favorable tax treatment over a single person with no kids? That law was written when married women were not a major participant in the workforce, and as such is grossly outdated.

  The problem is that you take away the "incentive" to create a family, and give benefits to people who raise children out of wedlock.... And then you get into a situation with who gets the 'child credits' if they are not together. I think it's pretty obvious what happens here.
  
  If you want to take away the marraige benefit for Dinks that's one thing....but I think it would be to everyone's benefit if incentives were given and expanded to couples raising children within a cohesive, committed family unit.
• ts1227

  

  But should tax benefits be, essentially, based on morals?
• Con_Alma

  ts1227;1413655 wrote:But should tax benefits be, essentially, based on morals?

  Tax legislation has and will continue to mold/shape social actions through financial incentives.
• gut

  HitsRus;1413651 wrote:The problem is that you take away the "incentive" to create a family, and give benefits to people who raise children out of wedlock.... And then you get into a situation with who gets the 'child credits' if they are not together. I think it's pretty obvious what happens here.
  
  If you want to take away the marraige benefit for Dinks that's one thing....but I think it would be to everyone's benefit if incentives were given and expanded to couples raising children within a cohesive, committed family unit.

  Those are good points, but with divorce rates @50% how effective is this incentive? Also do you really want to incentivize people to stay together just for the tax benefit?
  
  Ultimately children are good for current and future economic growth, so I think that's really all you want to incentivize.
• HitsRus

  

  ^^^I disagree,.... obviously, the current tax benefit is not enough incentive to keep people together when they are in a lousy marraige, so I think that point is moot. Moreover, you already have welfare queens that have children just to get more benefits....do you really want to open that can of worms?
• sleeper

  

  Punish the welfare queens by removing welfare. Can't feed your child? That's negligence. The problem would solve itself overnight.
• gut

  HitsRus;1413677 wrote:Moreover, you already have welfare queens that have children just to get more benefits....do you really want to open that can of worms?

  Yeah, I'm not talking about welfare, I'm talking about increasing the deduction for the first 2 or 3 children to offset the loss of filing jointly. You could even go a step further reducing the deduction, but allowing both to claim dependents under the same roof so everything washes out.
  
  Negative tax liabilities are a completely different discussion.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  " I'm not sure how you can deny benefits to a protected class - change "gay" to "black" and it seems kind of a no-brainer decision."
  
  The easy answer to this is performing gay acts doesn't generally make one a member of a protected class - even in many "gay-friendly" states. It isn't as if the government can monitor one's activities.
  
  To the extent that the federal government recognizes a civil union between two people and there is a tangible tax benefit, get ready for a lot of BS civil unions - gay or straight - to arbitrage the situation. I'n not sure DINK's benefit much from marriage, the marriage penalty is still present in many tax provisions (just look at Obama's promise that he won't raise taxes on those making less than $200K, or $250K filing jointly - note it isn't $400K). The benefit is when one of the partners has little to no income.
  
  For example, if I have a roommate that recently lost his job and doesn't expect to find a comparable position in the near-term, it would be highly beneficial for us both to form a civil union and take advantage of the joint tax rates. That likely wouldn't be the case if we both earned an equal amount of comp.
• queencitybuckeye

  Con_Alma;1413656 wrote:Tax legislation has and will continue to mold/shape social actions through financial incentives.

  Would agree with "will", would disagree with "should".
• HitsRus

  

  gut;1413723 wrote:Yeah, I'm not talking about welfare, I'm talking about increasing the deduction for the first 2 or 3 children to offset the loss of filing jointly. You could even go a step further reducing the deduction, but allowing both to claim dependents under the same roof so everything washes out.
  
  Negative tax liabilities are a completely different discussion.

  I'm using 'welfare' as an example of what happens when you incentivize having children outside of a committed relationship. Are these children better off? I'm speaking in generalities not specifics...I'm sure there are examples where children are better off under one loving parent, than children in a failed, miserable, or abusive marraige.
• pmoney25

  

  Pretty simple. As long as the government is in the marriage business. Which it shouldn't be. But since thats the way it is now, then I'm for Gay Marriage or Civil unions. If churches don't want to marry gays, thats fine also.
  
  If two consenting adults want to spend their lives together, they should be awarded the same privileges as any other couple.
• pmoney25

  

  50% of marriages end in divorce and another 10-15% probably stay together strictly for the kids sake or financial reasons. Not really much more they can do to destroy the sanctity of marriage.
• FatHobbit

  

  pmoney25;1414091 wrote:Pretty simple. As long as the government is in the marriage business. Which it shouldn't be. But since thats the way it is now, then I'm for Gay Marriage or Civil unions. If churches don't want to marry gays, thats fine also.
  
  If two consenting adults want to spend their lives together, they should be awarded the same privileges as any other couple.

  I agree with this. If churches don't want to marry people they shouldn't be forced to. But two consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want and get the same benefits as any other consenting adults.
• HitsRus

  

  If two consenting adults want to spend their lives together, they should be awarded the same privileges as any other couple.

  I agree with this.
• gut

  HitsRus;1413999 wrote:I'm using 'welfare' as an example of what happens when you incentivize having children outside of a committed relationship.

  The child tax credit already exists whether you are married or not. By itself it is not some giant incentive - the people you are referring to are doing that because of the welfare benefits.
• gut

  Manhattan Buckeye;1413980 wrote:
  The easy answer to this is performing gay acts doesn't generally make one a member of a protected class

  I'm pretty sure sexual orientation is a protected class - it's why you get a worse sentence for punching a gay dude. You may disagree, but the law is the law.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  gut;1414210 wrote:I'm pretty sure sexual orientation is a protected class - it's why you get a worse sentence for punching a gay dude. You may disagree, but the law is the law.

  Federally? I'm pretty sure it isn't. There are decades of Con law scrutiny for sex and race. There's isn't much for orientation. There's a difference between a hate crime (which I think is idiocy) and a protected class. The term "protected class" has serious meaning in Con law.
• gut

  Manhattan Buckeye;1414225 wrote:Federally? I'm pretty sure it isn't.

  Not federally, but in most states. Although protected classes have evolved, and this could end-up making sexual preference a protected class (but I'm guess they won't go that far).
• gut

  Well sounds like the SC might punt this, which is probably the correct route. Although one could hope for finality to get this stupid question out of the national debate, but obviously as with abortion that will never happen.
  
  Forget where I heard it, but great point that no one is discriminated against - no one is prevented from marrying someone of the opposite sex. And since you're not dealing with a federally protected class, where's the discrimination?
• SportsAndLady

  

  gut;1415091 wrote:Well sounds like the SC might punt this, which is probably the correct route. Although one could hope for finality to get this stupid question out of the national debate, but obviously as with abortion that will never happen.
  
  Forget where I heard it, but great point that no one is discriminated against - no one is prevented from marrying someone of the opposite sex. And since you're not dealing with a federally protected class, where's the discrimination?

  
  So translate this for someone (me) who doesn't understand political talk. This isn't going to pass?