Posted on 07/26/2011 6:31:54 AM PDT by fwdude
De-Emphasizing marriage and abolishing State Marriage would definitely have been seen as liberal, up until very recently. Certainly, removing state control over an area where it is not required is definitely liberal. That was the understanding when I began to back this long term goal back in 2004.
(snip)
...the reason why we are fighting for marriage equality is because we have to work with the present governmental system for a while yet. Marriage equality is currently easier to achieve than getting government out of the business, but the latter should be our long term goal. As for de-emphasizing marriage in culture, that is the only way to achieve freedom and equality for all (globally) in the long run that I can see.
I actually agree! All governments should be out of the marriage business. I am now divorced and file my federal income taxes as a single person. And because I am single I end up paying $4000 more per year in taxes just because I am not married. Whether I am single or not is not the business of the federal government and certainly no reason to confiscte $4000 more dollars out of me than if I were married. That’s social engineering with financial punishment handed out and no government should be socially engineering anyone!!!
Secondly, and this shows how ill-informed you are, the fact that you pay $4,000 more in taxes as a single person than if you were married DOES NOT mean that that $4k benefit would be available to you if governments did not recognize any marriages. It would simply mean that EVERY married couple would be taxed at the single rate, not the married rate. The government isn't confiscating $4,000 MORE out of you as a single, but $4,000 LESS, probably because of income splitting, because you are married. This only makes sense, for people who are acting as one organism, who have bonded their lives together as one in marriage, really are one unit. Why shouldn't they be treated as such?
Technically speaking, you may have a debate point about the fact that people get tax exemptions for dependent children, and other tax benefits due to having children. I would just point out that we all have a stake in the raising of children, and families raising childen have higher expenses than others. So that’s why it was decided long ago that families with children get the tax benefits they get.
The same decision was made with mortgage interest deductions, and everything else in the tax code where there is a tax benefit. Items are in the tax code because of some benefit to society by having such tax benefits.
Sad to say, if the code were changed, and the tax code were changed to eliminate the provision by which you are paying more than a married person, everyone’s taxes would go up. You would not end up saving 4 grand, everyone’s taxes would simply rise to the level you pay now as a single person.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the homosexual activists want to destroy whatever there is out there that marginalizes them, real or imaginary.
You're the deluded one! And you just proved my point with what you wrote above. If government wasn't in the marriage business sing;le and married people would pay the same in taxes!!! D'oh!!! That's my point Einstein!!! And since we don't pay the same in taxes and single people pay more in taxes that is SOCIAL ENGINEERING!!! And $1500 child credit for producing babies!!! More SOCIAL ENGINEERING!!! Whether I am single or married or having babies or not is none of the government's business and they certainly don't need to be giving away tax credits for certain social behavior. YOU BEEN SOCIALLY ENGINEERED BY YOUR GOVERNMENT AND YOU LIKE IT!!! Admit it!!!
And that's fine with me. Everyone pay their fair share. No need for single people to carry the burden of someone's INDIVIDUAL and PERSONAL choice to get married and have kids.
I think Christians need to be more forceful about both marriage and adoption, to truly grab the high ground and keep it.
And this means being exclusionary. Churches will perform no marriages but “covenant” marriages, and they must be crystal clear that proven violations of such marriages make those who violated them subject to church divorce, loss of assets, and permanent expulsion. And they will not recognize marriages of people who belong to, or join their church until renewed as a covenant marriage.
The same with adoption, to have orphanages, not foster parents, until children can be adopted to a covenant marriage couple of that church.
This is a selling point for women who seek to give their children up for adoption, a *guarantee* that their children will have institutional protection until they are adopted to a “good” family.
Of course this will be called a “hard assed” approach, but this is a *good* thing.
In past, churches have been too forgiving, in an effort to be more inclusive. They have accepted that some people will foul up, and can be redeemed. And this is true, but *only* if they don’t continue to foul up, *and* what they have fouled up about is not overwhelmingly serious.
If a couple marry in haste, and must divorce because of the misbehavior of one of them, it means not just that the offender has fouled up, but that he has grievously injured another in the process. This is comparable to someone confessing to an unsolved violent crime, and wanting religious forgiveness, but *not* to go to prison for their crime.
The same with adoption. For adults to play stupid games with an adopted child is a horrible violation of that child. So adoption must have very strict rules, and no tolerance or easy forgiveness to those who do so.
Governments prefer foster parenting, and they are also willing to permit inappropriate adults to adopt children. This is because they want to be relieved of “the burden” of the life of that child, as well as playing their stupid games.
By being “hard assed”, churches can restore the seriousness to such institutions as marriage and child rearing, and their congregations will understand and appreciate their church being very serious about things that matter very much.
Amen! And this used to be the hard and fast social/spiritual rule in society, until moral relativist seized hold on positions of power and influence. Let it be so again.
And there you go again. Government is NOT in the "marriage business." As I have written before, the government merely acts as a third party recording agent, providing an official depository of records as evidence of what society already recognizes. Government doesn't tell anyone HOW to do marriage, how to maintain it, or what the wedding is required to be like. Only a one-time, nominal recording fee is required after the absolute minimal requirements are met: relationship, consent, age and opposite sex status. Otherwise, the couple is free to conduct their marriage in any way they choose. Only when things go wrong in a marriage, or a marriage dissolves, either through death of one member or by divorce, do people like you expect government to "get involved" through enforcement of contracts and probate of estates. What do they have to act upon unless something is there?
Government should not tax a person more or less based on whether they are married or not! That *IS* the government in the marriage business which is none of their damn business.
I’ll be damned if you think you should be taxed less just because you are married and me taxed more just because I am divorced. You think you are special or something? You think the government deserves more of my paycheck and more of my labor than yours!!! Pfffffffffttt!!!
From Wikipedia (check sources if you must!):
"In 1996, 42 percent of married taxpayers paid more because they were filing jointly than they would have if they had remained single, according to a 1997 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis.[2] The average penalty among these couples was $1,380."
The reason some couples don't pay as much isn't simply because of the fact that they're married, it's because when there is a larger disparity in income between the two married individuals, the total combined income is halved, putting the higher earner in a potentially lower income bracket in our unconscionably progressive tax scheme.
If you want to rail against "unfairness," rail against the progressive tax system. Now THERE'S your social engineering.
Because I can do my taxes both ways for my own knowledge as single and as married and see the difference. And there currently is no married penalty. The 2001 tax cuts fixed that and now the is a penalty for being single. In my case it's $4000 cash per year. And interestingly when I was married in the 1990s there was a married penalty which hit both me and my wife. So in that case, the government can't even get it right.
You do not deserve to pay $4000 less in taxes than me just because you are married and I am not. It's that simple. It's social engineering and I don't need a government to social engineer a damn thing, especially when it means they are robbing me an extra $4000 bucks per year for being single. And the government doesn't need to be giving people child credits for cranking out babies. That's a personal decision and personal responsibility which I should not have to shoulder the costs via $1500 child credits.
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