Domestic Partners

Great Debates
41

Former Agent (who needs to learn the courtesy of using lower-case on message boards; posting in solid caps is considered SHOUTING) –

If you marry your fiancee, or register her as your domestic partner where such registries are available, or log her into such benefits programs as you are eligible for and which cover your “family” (however defined) including a DP, then she would be eligible. Domestic partner registries are not gay-exclusive; they provide a means for “term marriage” for heterosexual couples who want to commit but not necessarily the lifelong hard-to-break commitment of traditional marriage. She is, and should not, be eligible for your benefits until you formalize the bond in some way (even if it’s just listing her as DP with your benefits provider). The whole idea of such benefits is to provide them to persons with whom the employee has a significant bond (parentship, including adoption and guardian-ward status, marriage, including DP-ship, filiation (i.e., your parents or those who raised you in the absence of parents)…“Family” in a broad sense. As your fiancee, she has acknowledged intent to formalize a bond with you, but has not done it.

And no, I don’t see any special rights. My wife is dependent on me (or on finding a job in an industry where eight years of greater computerization have passed her by since she left work), and benefits I can provide for her are my right, duty, and privilege. And if I had a gay coworker who made a similar commitment to his/her S.O., he/she would have the exact same responsibility towards that S.O.

Oh, and dlv? “PC Media”? That would be message boards (communications Media) accessed by PC’s? :slight_smile:

42

FYI, ARROGANT “SPECIAL PERSON” PLDENNISON

MY CAPS ARE SET BY MY NETWORK, AND SINCE IM IN LANGLEY VA. THE GOV’T DECIDED WE WILL USE ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME ALL DAY EVERDAY.

APPRECIATE YOUR INQUISITIVE NATURE, GOOD THING THEY STILL TRAIN YOU MONKEYS BEFORE USING YOU IN OUR SPACE PROGRAMS… :slight_smile:

43

POLYCARP…

OUR STATE DOESNT DO IT THAT WAY, THATS WHY ITS CALLED “SPECIAL RIGHTS”. NOT TO MENTION WHAT IF I DECIDE TO HAVE A LONG ENGAGEMENT?? HMMM I’D LOVE TO BE ABLE TO COVER MY FIANCEE WITH MY BENEFITS, BUT I CAN’T UNLESS WE ARE MARRIED. BUT IF I DATED MY BESTFRIEND(MALE) WE’D BE COVERED?? HMM SEEMS LIKE A SPECIAL RIGHT NOW DOESNT IT?

MIKE

44

so then allow homosexuals to get married and you won’t have to worry about it. right? no special rights, just the same ones that heterosexuals have. imagine that

(caps removed to try to make up for all-cap-man, above)

45

David…Mike has posted (twice) that when he is at work he is on machines that only permit all-caps, and has posted at least once in lowercase when home. My apologies to him for my own criticism, above.

46

Thank you POLYCARP

See people… it really is set up that way :stuck_out_tongue:

Mike

47

First of all, let me state again what I am arguing. I am arguing that IF men’s suffrage gives society benefits and women’s suffrage does not, then there is no reason to allow women to vote. I am not arguing whether or not those benefits exist. I am not arguing women’s suffrage should not be allowed because it is evil. I am not arguing that women’s suffrage should not have been allowed because it was not allowed in the constitution.
What I am trying to say is that there are good arguments against women’s suffrage that have nothing to do with being pro or anti woman.

Now, the only arguments that I have seen made for women’s suffrage is

  1. It’s only fair

  2. Chauvanists are against women’s suffrage, therefore if you’re against it you’re a chauvanist.

If you want to argue that women’s suffrage produces benefits then that’s a whole other argument. And it’s a logical one. But these two arguments are not logical.

(That was fun!)

48

Nice job, Holly! :slight_smile:

(I knew a woman once who maintained that women’s suffrage at least gave a chance of there being some sensible votes cast.

OK, the following questions seem to be open:
[list][]Are domestic partnerships “special rights”? My take on this is that if limited to gays, they would be: the ones I’ve seen any rules for permit their creation and dissolution by simple registration with a county clerk or equivalent, sometimes by means of a notarized form. This is a privilege not extended to mixed-sex couples. Otherwise, no, they would not be. Mike, do I understand you correctly that Virginia only permits gay couples to register?[]Are “rights” such as marriage and D.P. required to have a socially benefical purpose to be allowable? Not in my mind, nor, I’m sure, in Libertarian’s. Konrad appears to believe so (I welcome correction, K. I’m drawing the logical implications from what you’ve written, but I’m willing to believe you may not mean what it appears you do).[*]**May Konrad marry his lawnmower?**Sure, with our blessing. We all want to be present for the consummation! :wink:

49

Let’s not forget our safety goggles!

50

If you register a DP, yes. If DP registration is limited to same-sex couples, then it’s a very Bad Thing in my view. Are any gays stupid enough to advocate that?

Regarding politically correct media’s coverage (or rather lack thereof) of the homosexual rape and murder of the 13 year old boy, try clicking on the 3 URLs I posted above and then comment.

Konrad can’t marry a lawn mower, or a 3-year-old child of either sex, or a Down syndrom patient for same reason why none of these prospective marriage partners can’t sign any other contract - can you guess it?

51

i work in Virginia 1/2 the time and California the other half, and the answer, through my DoJ and Congressional Law review filings clerk says, GAYS only, otherwise everyone engaged or just “shacked-up” would get to “abuse” the rights…

which i take to mean, “abuse” means we’d take advantage of having benefits, and actually use them, and wouldnt all be unhealthy and suffering due to our college inflicted poverty. :slight_smile:

Mike

52

Kepi: thank you for a short rendition of the points I’ve argued on this board regarding this very issue.

dlv: All of those obigations & duties you mentioned are self-incurred/inflicted, and, therefore should not be paid for out of the public till.

53

Yo, former! According to the mainstream press out of San Francisco ( http://www.sfgate.com ) and San Jose (http://www.sjmercury.com[/url), the domestic partnership law in California is both statewide and applies to all couples desiring to enter into such a partnership.

(p.s. What do you have against California? You say you spend 1/2 your time here; why inflict that on us?)

54

Hmm, I guess they ARE that stupid! Obviously DP registration for homosexuals only must be opposed by any means necessary. Oh well, what else can be expected from the Clinton administation.

More paranoid piffle. If one spouse becomes too sick to work, the other spouse has to go through his/her savings before the sick spouse can collect government benefits. A homosexual “domestic partner” has to go through his/her savings, and then he collects food stamps while his boyfriend is rolling in dough. Who’s abusing the system here?

55

Either I’m missing something, or people are willfully misunderstanding Konrad’s point because they don’t like what they see as the implied conclusion.
A lot of people have asked, seemingly rhetorically, what interest the state has in promoting marriage of ANY stripe; the state clearly does this with the legal protections and benefits afforded married couples.
For example: If insurance coverage is extended by government fiat to people who actuaries might otherwise avoid, and I am not personally one of those people, I am incurring a burden of higher rates and/or less satisfactory care for myself. This is justified by most people as one of the burdens “we” have to bear as members of society.

Well, Okay, but we have the capacity, as a society, to choose which burdens we place on each other. Usually this is done because it is felt some collective good is served. What is my interest - or more broadly, society itself’s interest - in promoting marriage in its members? This, I think, is what Konrad is after. There is no obvious answer I would accept, except that we have a collective obligation to provide a healthy and nurturing environment for children, and marriage has traditionally been felt to foster that.
This is NOT a statement that children are the purpose of marriage, but rather that children are the principle interest that broader society has in promoting marriage. There may be others, but all the ones I can think of are pretty weak and tangential compared to society’s interest in bringing up healthy children.

So Bill and Sally may feel a wonderful loving commitment to each other, and that’s just swell for them. But why do you or I give a damn? We care because that feeling on this couple’s part is a step in the propagation of our own culture, society, and species. At least, that’s why I care, and I’m one of those people making up the difference in insurance and tax breaks extended to the married.

Do gay marriages deserve the same legal status? Again, speaking for myself, it comes down to whether they can in general make good parents or not. Obviously, they cannot procreate in the traditional familial model but this is not really central, I think, given the multitude of procreative options available. More important to me is whether, as is so often asserted, “children most need two loving parents; the sex of those parents is unimportant”. This may be true. But then again, it’s a politically popular thing to say and would be so whether it was true or not; so we need to look at it closely.

I submit some questions to the group. I’m looking for actual facts, here, not anecdotes or moral statements.

  1. How many adults in the United States right now were raised by same-sex couples? By homosexual couples?
  2. Are there any statistically significant differences in rates of mental health or its indicators for this group versus those raised by heterosexual couples? (divorce rates, criminal records, suicides, substance abuse, etc.)

I’ve never seen figures on this, even suspect ones, and I imagine it’s because the sample size hasn’t been high enough to give good data. An increase in the number of children placed with homosexual couples would allow us, as a society, to do this experiment more completely.

56

Monty, remove, for just a second the ignormaus in you, and the attempted mockery, and try again.

I spend half my time here cause my job requires it, as though you think i relish gas prices twice mine in Va, and inflated pricing for the “gift” of living in Ca. can you believe you all pay a sort of “luxury tax” on all items becuase your mailing address shows “california” on it??? sick no?

second of all, your “mainstream” press release is false, and has been known so since the press release and conference with the governor, in which i was in attendance serving as director of security, and his words were “for homosexuals and domestic partners in homosexual relationships”, so you get it straight from the ploitical puppets fuzzy little mouth… special rights, that others wont get. :slight_smile:

can i draw you a picture of a crow, so you can go find one and eat it??

Mike

57

Monty, remove, for just a second the ignormaus in you, and the attempted mockery, and try again.

I spend half my time here cause my job requires it, as though you think i relish gas prices twice mine in Va, and inflated pricing for the “gift” of living in Ca. can you believe you all pay a sort of “luxury tax” on all items becuase your mailing address shows “california” on it??? sick no?

second of all, your “mainstream” press release is false, and has been known so since the press release and conference with the governor, in which i was in attendance serving as director of security, and his words were “for homosexuals and domestic partners in homosexual relationships”, so you get it straight from the political puppets fuzzy little mouth… special rights, that others wont get. :slight_smile:

can i draw you a picture of a crow, so you can go find one and eat it??

Mike

58

Former:

First-fuck off.

Second-why should I believe you over the press?

59

Monty… temper temper

Your diapers may be full but thats no reason for you to make a stink in here.

The press L I E D… simple, always depends on whose side they were on… but i was there, and i heard what he said… so get your facts straight and behave like the rest of the big boys…

Mike

60

Monty, I’ll get to you before David B. does. Please watch the language. If you want to insult someone directly, especially with profanity, please take it to the Pit.

agent, it seems like you’re falling back on the tired old conspirfreak chestnut of “everything’s a lie except for what I believe.” But unless you can prove that everything published in the press is false you might want to rethink your position a little.

I’d prefer to see a debate here, rather than the automatic gainsaying of whatever the other person has to say. For you to answer everything with “I’m right, just admit it” is pretty weak.

-andros-