If you increase the number of people considered married under the law then you shift the tax burden to single people. Somebody has to make up the difference.
The rational solution is to eliminate the deduction for married couples and increase the deduction for dependent children in a revenue neutral way.
No, the rational solution is a straight (pardon the pun) per-capita deduction. Increasing the deduction for dependent children is simply another cost-shift subsidy.
Except I’ve shown contrary evidence.
Since I’m making the argument (or, more accurately, explaining the state’s argument) and I’ve not mentioned God, then there really is no argument. It is a secular argument.
It has not been demonstrated to be false, as I’ve shown.
No. If you were right about the efficacy of the argument, that doesn’t mean that the argument doesn’t exist. It just means that some people believe something that is untrue.
Except I’m quite confident you are being discriminated against in some way.
Because governments discriminate all the time. We just have to decided where it’s accpetable.
Fairness is in the eye of the beholder.
It is indeed.
Because there is a tension between ssm and how it effects others.
I’m not sure fairness is the pinnacle of positive attributes for a good society. Are you? Our tax policy is replete with examples of what some might call unfairness.
I’m sorry, but the Tax Code Reform group is meeting down the hall, room 27B. This is for DOMA discussion and justification of withholding rights based on the gender of parties to a contract. With a side order of “Won’t somebody think of the children!!!”
That was pretty funny.
Nonetheless, the poster above was appealing to fairness. My point is that fairness can not be the greatest virtue becase one can argue that there is so much unfairness among all kinds of things. I see little motivation to correct those. the tax code being the easiest and starkest example (that I can think of right now)
Now, now; what have we told you about waiting for the doctor with the rubber glove instead of pulling things out from there yourself?
Oh, and you have the “affects”/“effects” distinction bass ackward.
You link to the district court’s opinion in Golinski v OPM, which rejected precedent in the Ninth Circuit concerning the level of scrutiny and applied heightened scrutiny to the issue.
I agree that if heightened scrutiny is applied, the issue is a no-brainer.
I am not sure I agree that heightened scrutiny is a lock.
Sure. “And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.” The Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to determine the effect of states’ records on other states. The rational basis of this law can simply be that.
Okay, so DOMA isn’t a bad law - it merely clears the way for bad laws.
Your “proof” was a study that compared various married groups, it proved that hetro couples can make really poor parents, it did nothing to show that homosexual couples are bad parents.
It demonstrated that the more stable the home is the better it was for the kids, thus it actually would infer that DOMA hurt kids, if it had even dealt with gay families at all.
If you read the opinion in Golinski v OPM the cout did not “reject precedent” there was no precedent because it was based on Bowers v. Hardwick
“Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today.” Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 578 (2003)
I agree it is not 100% sure that SCOTUS will apply heightened, but I think it is the most likely outcome.
I think the 1st will stick with their standing precedent which is rational.
Well, that’s the question. The opinion quoted another case which said, in effect, that when a higher court precedent twas found to be based on another, case, since overruled, the district court could assume that the precedent itself was overruled.
So you had precedent in the Ninth Circuit that homosexuality was a matter for rational basis review only, High Tech Gays v. Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office. But because the district court found that High Tech Gays rested squarely on Bowers (since overruled by Lawrence) it rejected High Tech Gays. The court did reject precedent – it’s just saying it was correct to do so.
Of course the district court that addressed High Tech Gays found Bowers inapplicable, so I’d say there’s at least some question as to how persuasive Bowers and Lawrence were. But even setting aside what binding precedent might exist, the bottom line remains the same: right now, the Supreme Court has not given its imprimatur to anything except rational basis review of laws that classify gays.
I don’t have any children myself, but I don’t have a problem with people who assume the burden of raising future citizens getting a tax break. My objection is to people who want the privileges, but don’t want to do the actual work. People object to overpopulation, but the fertility rate in the United States has been below ZPG for forty years and frankly I like to have somebody around to change my bedpan at the nursing home someday and also to pay into the Social Security Trust Fund.
What standard do you use to determine when “a tension between” two things is an acceptable basis for creation of a law, in light of the fact that the existence of this tension is disputed?
In other words, how many people have to accept the reality of this tension and agree that it is a bad thing? A simple majority? One person?
I posted this earlier in the parent thread:
The “traditional marriage” argument makes about as much sense as defending Roe v. Wade on the grounds that abortion is traditional.
That’s debatable.
I recall you criticizing Romer v. Evans on the (correct) basis that the court applied something that wasn’t rational basis review. In any event, I don’t see much (other than Scalia’s typical unsupported nod to “traditional sexual mores”) keeping the court from applying heightened scrutiny here.
The debate about whether sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic is over.
True. I guess I should have more specifically said that the Supreme Court has never SAID it has applied anything but rational basis review to the issue… even though they did in fact create a fourth level of scrutiny, which commentators have called “rational basis with teeth.”
Maybe.
By that I mean: orientation is immutable. But behavior is not. That’s the point the High Tech Gays court made. The attraction may be immutable; the behavior is not. This stands in contrast to, say, race or gender, where there is no behavior, just being.
That’s why we have a system of government. These things are fought in the arena of ideas, by whom we vote for, how we spend our money, etc. My personal tipping point is immaterial. My job is to convince you of my case, and then go on to the next guy, through the mechanisms described above. I can answer that for me, but I don’t think that’s the point of the thread. You, I would assume, have a different tipping point (or no tipping point at all) and that’s fine. You, in turn, will try to convince me.
I’m not seeing it. In fact, I read the case as specifically rejecting the appellees’ contention that sexual orientation is immutable.
This rationale presupposes that homosexuality is some kind of optional behavior. Men who are only attracted to men are still gay even when they’re celibate. Anyway, I’m not sure that any of this opinion is still valid in light of Lawrence, resting as it does quite heavily on Bowers.
Anyway, for the purposes of determining the constitutionality of DOMA, it doesn’t matter whether homosexuality is immutable. Based on prior holdings, DOMA would have to meet strict scrutiny because it burdens a fundamental right.
Yet an attraction to a person of the other gender who is of another “race” is not a mutable behavior?
What differentiation do you make between homosexual marriage and an interracial marriage, as to level of scrutiny if you admit that homosexual attraction is immutable.
I don’t. I just point out that racial classifications trigger strict scrutiny.