If Same-Sex Marriage Is so Popular, Why Does It Always Lose at the Ballot Box?

[Dan82]

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/0...d-legislation/

With the continuing debate regarding the electoral implications of Obama’s announcement regarding his support for gay marriage, we are very pleased to welcome the following guest post from Gregory B. Lewis of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University...



http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/0...d-legislation/

[Revan]

Quite an intriguing and well thought out article...not sure what else I have to stay right now.

[kris B]

Now that is a question everyone wonders about. From the data in the article, it seems that Washington and Maine would approve marriage bills this year. I hope that prediction turns out to be correct.

[Pret Allez]

Well, I hear that the slight majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, but that's extrapolating from numerous small samples. While the data are statistically significant and we can be fairly confident on the figures, this doesn't mean that the slight majority of Americans are distributed evenly throughout the states.

[Rob999]

There are some really stupid comments on there...

[thylvin]

I don't get it. At first Obama was against it, Then for it, then against it, then OK with it and now not really for it, but neither is he against it either. If you want to talk about confusing getting to terms about sexuality I think Obama is even more confused!!!!

[Censored]

I think the marriage license should be abolished. I shouldn't have to get permission to get married from any government. Contracts can be used to determine most of the legal stuff. At least in the US, marriage was always dealt with as a private, social matter in the churches. Yet soon interracial marriages occurred, and governments began to require marriage licenses to prevent miscegenation. Licenses like this are always meant to exclude people from voluntarily associating with each other in some way.

[RealityCheck]

Originally Posted by Censored

I think the marriage license should be abolished. I shouldn't have to get permission to get married from any government. Contracts can be used to determine most of the legal stuff. At least in the US, marriage was always dealt with as a private, social matter in the churches. Yet soon interracial marriages occurred, and governments began to require marriage licenses to prevent miscegenation. Licenses like this are always meant to exclude people from voluntarily associating with each other in some way.

This is how I kinda feel. I mean even outside of gay marriage, I don't like the fact that there are differences made between single and married people. People should be able to make contracts recognized by the gov't and taxation be fair and balanced to all. I don't like social engineering. This even happens in the corporate world. An example would be my health insurance. Coworkers with 10 kids pay the same amount as I do by myself. I think I would like to pay higher taxes just to have a fair system that I can understand. The tax code is ridiculous.

[Censored]

Originally Posted by RealityCheck

This is how I kinda feel. I mean even outside of gay marriage, I don't like the fact that there are differences made between single and married people. People should be able to make contracts recognized by the gov't and taxation be fair and balanced to all. I don't like social engineering. This even happens in the corporate world. An example would be my health insurance. Coworkers with 10 kids pay the same amount as I do by myself. I think I would like to pay higher taxes just to have a fair system that I can understand. The tax code is ridiculous.

I agree completely. One of the purposes of government in the first place is to enforce private contracts. I feel like all these different tax incentives and breaks are social engineering projects and its just absurd. I come from a family of 6, and my parents marital status and the kids they have give us good tax breaks that really help us. But I would MUCH rather have EVERYONE get those tax breaks. Whenever I say I want to get rid of the marriage license, people respond "then how will married couples get the tax benefits?" and I just think everyone should get them. Plus, if you are getting married just for the tax benefits, there is something wrong there, IMO.

And the tax code is a complete joke. It would be laughable if it weren't so atrocious.

[Pret Allez]

Unfortunately, between economic interventionist democrats and social interventionist republicans, libertopia will not become a reality. People don't let go of their privilege, so there's no way that we can bring about marriage equality from the backend by getting rid of state-sponsored marriage.