# An interesting take on the gay marriage ruling
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 26, 2015, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574 "2015-06-26T23:55:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2015, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/1 "2015-06-26T23:55:57Z")
There’s an old adage: be careful what you wish for, you might get it. I think the conclusion to this article says it all:
> [@](#):
>
> Unfortunately, today’s ruling also expands federal power in a way that does no one - gay or straight - any real good. Gay marriages will now be subject to the same IRS nightmares that the rest of us have endured, while the 10th Amendment has been (to a debatable degree) weakened. Gays won a historic fight, but in the long run they may discover that it was in support of the wrong goal.
>
> They should have been working toward an endgame that lessened state and federal intrusion into everyone’s life. The smarter play would have been to advocate elimination of the government’s licensing of anyone’s marriage.
>
> All of us would be much better off returning marriage to the strictly religious significance it always should have had, while simultaneously implementing a flat or fair tax to eliminate federal financial discrimination. This would increase the separation of church and state, allow gay couples to find a religion that would offer them a spiritual union, and remove the IRS penalties - and benefits - of marriage. Questions about parenting, medical, and inheritance rights could be easily solved through other means and the size, scope, and power of the government would have been limited.
>
> In short, we would treat everyone equally - as free individuals.
>
> What we got today is a ruling that - while in my opinion correct - perpetuates current IRS practices and expands the power of government by subjecting a whole new swath of the population to them. If you really believe in freedom, you shouldn’t be arguing for licenses or the limitation of gay rights.
>
> You should be arguing for less federal power and increased liberty for all.
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>
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---
### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/2 "2015-06-27T00:00:47Z")
Gays didn’t pay taxes before?
So besides gays, atheists and agnostics are either forced to have a religious wedding or not get married.
It’s well known that flat taxes treat the poor poorly.
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### Author:  [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/3 "2015-06-27T00:01:09Z")
I don’t blame marriage advocates for fighting their battle and not yours.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/4 "2015-06-27T00:07:53Z")
caintv dot com?
Herman Cain is a transvestite? :eek:
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### Author:  [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/5 "2015-06-27T00:21:06Z")
Same-sex married couples have been subject to the IRS rules for married couples since SCOTUS invalidated DOMA two years ago.
And, of course, any couple, gay or straight, that doesn’t want to play by the IRS’s rules for married couples can choose not to get married. But they’ll still have to pay taxes.
I’m pretty sure the gay couples in Texas and Ohio don’t share his desire for a federal government with less power.
This critique is both factually incorrect and silly.
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### Author:  [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/6 "2015-06-27T00:41:47Z")
I get it. A flat tax is better than gay marriage.
Do you have some literature I might place about the waiting room?
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### Author:  [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/7 "2015-06-27T01:01:24Z")
Nah, this analysis is incorrect.
Society has a vested interest in encouraging procreation both because an ever increasing supply of productive workers is needed to preserve the existence of our social insurance schemes like Social Security and Medicare and because our children allow for the perpetuation of our genes and our culture.
This interest is best fulfilled through the birth of natural-born citizens to US parents, because US citizens have higher earnings than due immigrants (whether due to discrimination, assimilation difficulties, or other issues).
Consequently, it is perfectly reasonable for the government to impose differential levels of taxation on individuals on the basis of the number of kids they have, because this compensates for the positive externalities created by children. Even with the viewpoint that more humans is harmful, the situation is game-theoretic on a country-by-country basis and we should encourage population growth among our own citizens in the absence of a global agreement to discourage population growth.
Marriage benefits exist because they encourage adult parents to enter into a stable, long-term relationship, which evidence indicates results in better outcomes for children than being raised in a single parent household. With the ease of intra-national immigration and the decrepitude of conservative social forces that can encourage marriage formation, it is all the more important for government to fill this void with incentives that promote childbirth and marriage.
As such, the belief among the libertarian right that government should cease licensing and promoting marriage is mistaken. Marriage benefits are necessarily to promote the continuance of our people, our polity and our way of life.
The claim that marriage benefits are given to infertile people, elderly people and those who do not wish to have children are red herrings. The difficulty in establishing medical conditions like infertility or in establishing a cutoff range for inability to produce children far exceed the trivial determination of gender.
Conservatives should call out the SCOTUS ruling for what it is; a successful attempt by a rent-seaking faction to claim benefits intended for and only deserved by another group. An attempt to get gay people to fight for small-government principles is both futile (how have the last 6+ decades of fighting for small government been going for you, conservatives?), factually wrong, and unlikely, as **Procrustus** noted.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/8 "2015-06-27T02:31:40Z")
That sounds like someone who’s actually saying ‘don’t fight for gay marraige, fight for this other goal that has nothing to do with gay marriage, benefit me instead and make the goal you actually want get put off for years’.
If someone went to NORML and said ‘you’re wrong to fight for the legalization of marijuana, what you should actually be fighting for is to lower sales tax, cuz you know, that way when it does get legalized you won’t get charged a ton on tax’. Now wouldn’t you think that person has an agenda that doesn’t involve legalizing marijuana.
I mean, to say ‘hey, instead of fighting for gay marriage, you should have fought to get rid of the tax implications for married people’…that doesn’t even make sense. Why would gay marraige advocates have done that? It would have set their cause back by years. If this guy wants lower tax, let him fight for it. Besides, aren’t taxes usually less for married people, not more?
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/9 "2015-06-27T02:41:01Z")
**Construct** : Your analysis loses its teeth when married gay couples are universally allowed to adopt children, increasing the number of stable households willing and able to raise children and reducing the number of children in unstable foster care environments. The decision isn’t wrong, it’s just incomplete, and waiting for further legislative and judicial action to finish the job.
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### Author:  [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/10 "2015-06-27T02:53:11Z")
Good post, Joey.
I have strong doubts about the sincerity of the concern expressed in the article. He doesn’t have any problems with gays, really, he just wants to save us all from the evil IRS.
Maybe he should be advocating for all the straight folks to get divorced.
Ridiculous.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/11 "2015-06-27T03:48:23Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#):
>
> Good post, Joey.
FTR, I only read the part quoted in the OP so I was hoping it held up.
> [@](#):
>
> I have strong doubts about the sincerity of the concern expressed in the article. He doesn’t have any problems with gays, really, he just wants to save us all from the evil IRS.
And to go along with my NORML analogy, I meant to add on that the person saying ‘nah man, fight for getting rid of sales tax’ may not have any problem with legalizing marijuana, it’s just that getting rid of sales tax is more important to him and this seemed like a free way to lobby for it.
Seems like the same deal here, someone was looking for a free way to lobby to get some IRS rules changed. What’s strange is that it was just brought up now (or at least this is the first time I heard of it). Why not bring it up years ago? OTOH, if gay rights advocates were to say ‘okay, we got the marraige thing, now we want to get rid of taxes on married couples’ (again, I thought there was a credit, not a penalty), it’s just going to make it look like they want extra privileges, not just equality and, again, would set the cause back. So it could have been a very round about way to counter the gay rights movement, like an anti legalization person saying ‘hey NORML, instead of trying to legalize marijuana, you should lobby for the age of consent to be lowered to 12’ (twists mustache and mutters to himself that no one will take them seriously anymore).
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### Author:  [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/12 "2015-06-27T11:25:29Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The smarter play would have been to advocate elimination of the government’s licensing of anyone’s marriage.
This is comedy gold, I salute your satirical take on the issue.
Yeah, Poe’s law and all, but sometimes the sheer ridiculousness of the position defies rational thinking.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/13 "2015-06-27T11:35:50Z")
Yawn. In response to gay marriage, right-winger proposes abolishing marriage so nobody can have it. It’s interesting to see it couched in a whine about not having the FairTax™, I guess, but not especially original otherwise.
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/14 "2015-06-27T13:08:08Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Unfortunately, today’s ruling also expands federal power in a way that does no one - gay or straight - any real good. Gay marriages will now be subject to the same IRS nightmares that the rest of us have endured, while the 10th Amendment has been (to a debatable degree) weakened. Gays won a historic fight, but in the long run they may discover that it was in support of the wrong goal.
>
> They should have been working toward an endgame that lessened state and federal intrusion into everyone’s life. The smarter play would have been to advocate elimination of the government’s licensing of anyone’s marriage.
>
> All of us would be much better off returning marriage to the strictly religious significance it always should have had, while simultaneously implementing a flat or fair tax to eliminate federal financial discrimination. This would increase the separation of church and state, allow gay couples to find a religion that would offer them a spiritual union, and remove the IRS penalties - and benefits - of marriage. Questions about parenting, medical, and inheritance rights could be easily solved through other means and the size, scope, and power of the government would have been limited.
>
> In short, we would treat everyone equally - as free individuals.
>
> What we got today is a ruling that - while in my opinion correct - perpetuates current IRS practices and expands the power of government by subjecting a whole new swath of the population to them. If you really believe in freedom, you shouldn’t be arguing for licenses or the limitation of gay rights.
>
> You should be arguing for less federal power and increased liberty for all.
Pretty damn ballsy, isn’t he? It’s one thing to hop on the bandwagon, but this guy wants to drive.
---
### Author:  [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/15 "2015-06-27T13:14:30Z")
This is the sourest bunch of sour grapes I’ve ever seen.
**Clothahump** , look- you were _wrong_. It happens to everyone. You lost. Be a gracious loser, learn from your mistakes. Be better next time. This sort of thing is just… embarrassing.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/16 "2015-06-27T13:17:02Z")
The Libertarian response to Rosa Parks would have been to melt all the busses for scrap metal.
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/17 "2015-06-27T13:20:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> All of us would be much better off returning marriage to the strictly religious significance it always should have had, while simultaneously implementing a flat or fair tax to eliminate federal financial discrimination. This would increase the separation of church and state, allow gay couples to find a religion that would offer them a spiritual union, …
Since when should marriage have had strictly religious significance? Marriage has been around for thousands of years, and has always had benefits and costs that have nothing to do with religion.
---
### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/18 "2015-06-27T13:30:19Z")
It gets the facts wrong.
Marriage has _always_ been a civil rite, granted by the government. That’s because it’s basically a contract, and it’s the government that oversees the enforcement of contracts (who else could? Certainly not the parties involved, and I doubt a church is a good choice). The religious part was just a celebration, and unnecessary to make a marriage legal.
For instance, in the middle ages in England, there were legal requirements for a marriage – the banns had to be put out for a certain amount of time, for instance. Once the legal requirements were met, the bride and groom would then celebrate in a church.
Churches only solemnized marriages that the state granted licenses for. No one was required to have a church involved, either. It was the license that made a marriage.
I’m curious about how the person quoted thinks life would be without government licensing of marriage. What happens to property in a divorce? What about children? Think of all the issues with marriage today and explain how things would be improved if it were just a free-for-all.
This just typical libertarians trying to squeeze the square pegs of their philosophy into the round holes of reality. I saw it with communists; I saw it with racists; I see it with Any Rand; I see it with Republicans. Everything has to be explained according to their ideology, and the mental gymnastics in fitting that ideology into reality would be amusing if they weren’t so set in trying to make others live that way.
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### Author:  [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/19 "2015-06-27T13:33:19Z")
What a surprise. The libertarian response to a major social issue is that we really should be concerned with taxes. Which might be why nobody takes libertarianism seriously.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2015, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-interesting-take-on-the-gay-marriage-ruling/723574/20 "2015-06-27T14:09:56Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> I’m curious about how the person quoted thinks life would be without government licensing of marriage. What happens to property in a divorce? What about children?
It’s a dumb idea, but these things wouldn’t be _impossible._ Unmarried couples break up after having had kids and bought houses and other property all the time. The kids part actually wouldn’t be very different at all, AFAIK.
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