Gibberish
January 11th, 2008, 12:00 pm · Post a Comment · posted by fsherman
In a Jan. 8 letter to the Daily News Niceville’s Chip Dearing rants that allowing gays to marry is “pushing for more government intervention in the bedroom” because someone will have to decide whether “those two women or men are married for love or for the benefits … How are you going to prove it one way or another?” He concludes that gays can already marry in Florida “but they want the benefits, they want the money” and will leech off taxpayers to get them.
It’s true, one of the issues in gay marriage is about benefits: The right to be with your partner and get information about him/her when they’re in the hospital, the right of inheritance, adoption and so on and so forth. But how exactly do these generate the huge pile of government welfare that Dearing seems to think is out there? I know a lot of married couples, and I don’t recall them getting huge pots of money from the state just for tying the knot.
In the second place, it’s true that gay couples could be married in a church or religious ceremony in this state. But I would bet money that any straight couple (including Mr. Dearing, should he be married) that made a church wedding and was told “I’m sorry, as far as the law is concerned, you’re just two single people living together.” would think this a significant infringement on their rights.
In the third place, if gay couples were together for benefits, how would this be different from countless straight couples? I had a friend who was married in name only to an Air Force officer because it gave her a financial benefit (I think it was housing allowance, but it’s been too many years to be sure) and he received a kickback. And we all know that some marriages happen purely because one partner has a big bank balance, which is another form of marriage-for-benefits. Cases like these haven’t led to “government intervention int he bedroom,” so why should gay marriage be any different?
