Tapsearch Com EditorGay marriage piece up at The American Spectator
February 9th 2007 18:42
Hi everyone...
Due to some unforseen circumstances, I have a week and a half of "vacation" before I start my new job February 19. I'm visiting my girlfriend in New York and then heading to visit my parents in Wisconsin, so blogging will probably be spotty until then.
(After that, I might revamp the content a bit. The Times is a newspaper as opposed to a magazine, so I might not be able to blog about things I opine about in the paper.)
Anyhow, yesterday The American Spectator ran a piece of mine about gay marriage. It's in response to a Washington state initiaitve to annul childless marriages after three years -- a retort to the argument that homosexual marriage shouldn't happen because homosexuals can't have kids.
Main point:
"Banning childless marriage is consistent with the child-centric approach, but it poses practical problems that banning homosexual marriage does not. The activists have to show that (A) childless marriage is pervasive enough to warrant action and (B) this proposal is the best way to accomplish that.
"The initiative fails on both counts. As such, it is intellectually honest to believe both that marriage exists because of children, and that banning childless heterosexual marriage is not a worthwhile endeavor."
The responses today are mixed. One man makes the excellent point, based on his own experience, that straights often try for years to have children, and for them as opposed to homosexuals, that's always a possibility. I did make the point that the law's three year cutoff is arbitrary, and that many parents have their first child more than three years in. There's also a key distinction between intentionally and accidentally childless marriages, one the government can't make when it comes to heterosexuals.
Mike Showalter of Texas writes:
"Perhaps unintentionally, Mr. VerBruggen, but you've actually put forth one of the best arguments for the Fair Tax. What we need is to completely remove the 'social engineering' aspects of the current system of taxation, and let these issues stand, or fall, on their own merits."
He's referring to my point that childless couples do in fact receive tax breaks, yet they save money on living expenses and do not contribute children to America's future (which, as the anti-gay marriage argument goes, is the whole reason for the tax breaks and government endorsement). That was intentional; I support the fair tax. At the very least, we should tie the tax breaks to legitimate children instead of marriage alone.
Due to some unforseen circumstances, I have a week and a half of "vacation" before I start my new job February 19. I'm visiting my girlfriend in New York and then heading to visit my parents in Wisconsin, so blogging will probably be spotty until then.
(After that, I might revamp the content a bit. The Times is a newspaper as opposed to a magazine, so I might not be able to blog about things I opine about in the paper.)
Anyhow, yesterday The American Spectator ran a piece of mine about gay marriage. It's in response to a Washington state initiaitve to annul childless marriages after three years -- a retort to the argument that homosexual marriage shouldn't happen because homosexuals can't have kids.
Main point:
"Banning childless marriage is consistent with the child-centric approach, but it poses practical problems that banning homosexual marriage does not. The activists have to show that (A) childless marriage is pervasive enough to warrant action and (B) this proposal is the best way to accomplish that.
"The initiative fails on both counts. As such, it is intellectually honest to believe both that marriage exists because of children, and that banning childless heterosexual marriage is not a worthwhile endeavor."
The responses today are mixed. One man makes the excellent point, based on his own experience, that straights often try for years to have children, and for them as opposed to homosexuals, that's always a possibility. I did make the point that the law's three year cutoff is arbitrary, and that many parents have their first child more than three years in. There's also a key distinction between intentionally and accidentally childless marriages, one the government can't make when it comes to heterosexuals.
Mike Showalter of Texas writes:
"Perhaps unintentionally, Mr. VerBruggen, but you've actually put forth one of the best arguments for the Fair Tax. What we need is to completely remove the 'social engineering' aspects of the current system of taxation, and let these issues stand, or fall, on their own merits."
He's referring to my point that childless couples do in fact receive tax breaks, yet they save money on living expenses and do not contribute children to America's future (which, as the anti-gay marriage argument goes, is the whole reason for the tax breaks and government endorsement). That was intentional; I support the fair tax. At the very least, we should tie the tax breaks to legitimate children instead of marriage alone.
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