# Gay marriage opponents grasping at straws. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 16, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660 "2009-05-16T17:32:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/1 "2009-05-16T17:32:31Z")
[RNC chief: Gay marriage will burden small business](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090516/ap_on_re_us/us_steele_republicans) > [@](#): > > SAVANNAH, Ga. – Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday. Personally I considered this to be rather mundane and pointless, but I have no doubt that this will heat up before it falls off the first page, therefore the Pit. All we need now are bumper stickers saying that God kills a kitten every time gays marry. :rolleyes::rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/2 "2009-05-16T17:52:07Z")
He makes a good point. Why, I say we outlaw marriage altogether. Think of the savings! ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/3 "2009-05-16T17:52:09Z")
By this exact same logic, they should be discouraging straight people from marrying. Now who’s anti-marriage, anti-family? ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/4 "2009-05-16T17:55:25Z")
You’re hip to my jive. No Marriage Now! No Marriage Now! ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/5 "2009-05-16T18:03:54Z")
Plus, all them gays would be able to file taxes jointly. It’ll increase the tax burden on the poor, hard-working offshore business accounts. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/6 "2009-05-16T18:10:15Z")
Do they deepen the hole they’re digging for themselves by implying that the benefits extended to heterosexual employees and their families are not considered a financial burden because they help to ensure healthy breeding stock? ---
**Author:** ![Alienhand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8edcca/32.png) [@Alienhand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alienhand)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/7 "2009-05-16T18:10:29Z")
Save the white man! End marriage NOW! ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/8 "2009-05-16T18:12:15Z")
Seriously … the tax-dodging megacorporations hurt small business FAR MORE than a tiny handful of gay employees drawing benefits. If the major corporations actually paid their damned share of the tax burden, it’d be better for small business. But you won’t hear any politician say that. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/9 "2009-05-16T18:17:15Z")
I can’t believe Michael Steele came so close to being elected a US Senator from Maryland a couple years ago. What a complete, first-class failure. I can believe that he was elected RNC Chairman. I mean, the guy’s a dolt! ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/10 "2009-05-16T18:17:33Z")
OTOH, it would make good business sense to hire only gays to save costs. Wonder what their straight constituents think of their leader’s attempts to give their jobs to gay employees. ETA: And heterosexuals aren’t a protected class so I can discriminate all I want! Score! ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/11 "2009-05-16T19:06:22Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I can’t believe Michael Steele came so close to being elected a US Senator from Maryland a couple years ago. What a complete, first-class failure. > > I can believe that he was elected RNC Chairman. I mean, the guy’s a dolt! But, for the Republicans, he’s Black to The Future[sup]TM[/sup], man! > [@Projammer](#): > > OTOH, it would make good business sense to \*\*1) \*\*hire only gays to save costs. > > Wonder what their straight constituents think of their leader’s attempts to \*\*2) \*\*give their jobs to gay employees. > > ETA: And heterosexuals aren’t a protected class so I can discriminate all I want! \*\*3) \*\*Score! I think you mean **3)** Profit! ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/12 "2009-05-16T19:55:28Z")
Michael Steele hasn’t yet grasped that he’s not supposed to propose anything or talk, but rather he’s there to read prepared statements by Hannity, Limbaugh, and or Gingrich and Cheney, to pose for pictures with them and to say some variation of “Hell no they aren’t racist, me and them’s friends!” has he? ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/13 "2009-05-16T21:11:46Z")
I have heard the argument before, by some guy in a bar, that gay marriage would mess with health insurance and pension plans. I disagree. Gay men and lesbians make up only a small slice of our population. Depending on your source, they’re somewhere between 2% and 5% of us. Many gay couples would combine two insurance accounts, and not cost any more. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/14 "2009-05-16T21:14:49Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > Gay men and lesbians make up only a small slice of our population. Depending on your source, they’re somewhere between 2% and 5% of us. Sure, _now_. Once they learn there’s a chance to file taxes jointly and get family bereavement leave in it for them people are gonna start assfucking and cunnilingulating like crazy (fast as they can get their shit packed for the men and lickety split for the women). ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2009, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/15 "2009-05-17T00:16:44Z")
Wait—when did the bassist for The Bangles become GOP Chairman? ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2009, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/16 "2009-05-17T00:21:33Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Wait—when did the bassist for The Bangles become GOP Chairman? I didn’t know he was the RNC Chairman, either. Was he - as my first instinct tells me - elected as a “we like black people too!” response to Obama’s election? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2009, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/17 "2009-05-17T00:40:06Z")
Now they’re trying to come up with some sort of _practical_ reason why this shouldn’t happen, desperately floundering and thrashing like the guy who knows the shark is gonna get him, but hopes maybe to scare him away. Yeah, right. Good luck with that, chum. Like so many times, you can see the change coming from way, way off, and it looks like it will never get here, detours, stalls, more detours and then suddenly the train goes roaring past, the walls come tumbling down, and the avalanche…avalanches! Chicka-boom, chicka-boom, dontcha just \*love \*it! _Venceremos!_ ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2009, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/18 "2009-05-17T00:47:13Z")
Someone should document all these people’s anti-SSM rhetoric now so it can be played back when they deny it in 20 years. I mean, how many people now admit they were on the wrong side of civil rights? It’s like how, if everyone who claims to have been at Woodstock had really been there, it would’ve been 10 times as big. The math doesn’t add up :dubious:. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2009, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/19 "2009-05-17T01:00:42Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Now they’re trying to come up with some sort of _practical_ reason why this shouldn’t happen, desperately floundering and thrashing like the guy who knows the shark is gonna get him, but hopes maybe to scare him away. Yeah, right. Good luck with that, **chum**. I saw what you did there. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2009, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/20 "2009-05-17T01:34:30Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > OTOH, it would make good business sense to hire only gays to save costs. Right. Now maternity leaves. No insurance for kids. No covering of braces and other stuff. Save them a bunch. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660.md?page=2)