Belkira the Tulip wrote:
It explains why it was lobbied for, then given, though...
No. It explains why it was lobbied for. Which is still only saying why the people who wanted the benefits wanted them. That does not tell us why it was given to them. There's no end to people wanting things because they would help them out in some way. We kinda have to start with a base assumption that we don't give everything to everyone, right? Thus, there must be some criteria used to decide which groups get which things and which don't.
You honestly have never thought about this? It never occurred to you to see if there's some common theme at work here? Head in sand a lot?
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Links to sources are infintely better than "it's obvious" and "these other guys have said it once, too!!"
Links to what sources, saying what, about what? You're being very vague. No one else has provided any links at all to any source discussing why the government would choose to provide those benefits, have they? So I've provided "links to sources", while no one else has. Yet, I get attacked because my sources aren't "primary sources"? All the while ignoring that the counter position hasn't provided any alternative explanation much less any sources to support said explanation.
You're applying radically different standards to the two sides of the discussion, aren't you?
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gbaji wrote:
What do you suppose you're doing when you argue in favor of socialized medicine on the grounds that it'll save us money because we're already having to pay for those people when they go to the emergency room anyway?
Arguing against people who suggest that we have no form of socialized medicine and people who swear up and down that it'll bankrupt us...?
Huh? Did you not understand the point of my question? If we gave people benefits just because they asked for them, or wanted them, or could show that they benefited them in some way, then there would be no reason to justify those benefits to the voting public on some grounds of economic parity or even benefit. The fact that these things nearly always include such an argument provides incredibly strong evidence that a similar rationale was involved in the decisions to provide various marriage benefits as well. They're just far enough in the past that the public debate aspect of those things aren't readily available on the interwebs.
It's just kind of absurd to argue that for some magical reason, in this one case, the government just said "Oh. You want these benefits? Sure!", when we don't do that for anything else. Even the arguments for Social Security and later Medicare were based on fiscal cost considerations. The argument was that it would be cheaper to collect the money for these things via payroll taxes ahead of time when people worked and then provide the benefits out of that fund than to deal with a bunch of elderly people needing money for housing and medical care after the fact.
Nearly every social spending program in the US is based on that sort of argument. Welfare? Same deal. Education spending? Same deal. Alternative Action spending? Same deal. We justify them all by arguing that the costs for not doing them outweigh the costs of the program themselves. Admittedly, many times this turns out not to be true, but the point here is that this is the argument which works when trying to get public support for these things.
I don't think it's unreasonable at all to assume that the same sort of reasoning exists behind the choice to fund various benefits for married couples. Yet somehow you all want to assume the exact opposite even in the absolute absence of any evidence.
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What was the larger, socio-economic benefit to be reaped for interracial marriages?
Lol! IIRC, that exact question was addressed in one of the two cases we often discuss here:
Perez v Sharp. The argument (on both sides mind you!) did involve the issue of mixed race children. On the one hand, the argument was that since mixed race children would be assumed to be at a disadvantage in life, the state should not encourage such things by allowing mixed race couples to marry. On the other side, the argument was that mixed race children would result from those relationships anyway, and it was unfair to deny their parents the opportunity to produce them in a recognized and legally binding marriage.
In both arguments, they absolutely did approach it from the perception that official recognition of the marriage, with the attendant benefits, acted as an incentive to relationship behavior. They only differed on whether or not it was a good idea to do so. The final decision basically came down to the same argument I make about heterosexual couples in general: They're going to get together whether they marry or not, and thus will produce children whether married or not, so we should let them marry because it's better for them and for the rest of us if they're born to a legally married couple.
That was probably the dumbest question you could have asked.
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And, do you honestly not see how your "it's all for the kids!!!!" argument still applies to same-sex marriage?You've just pared it down to "natural" children in an effort to convince yourself that you're "obvious logic" is right.
No. I'm looking at it from the perspective of consequences if we don't act. Just as the judge in that case did. If children are going to result from the relationship, they should be treated the same as any other relationship which may produce children. To do otherwise represents blanket and non-purposeful discrimination (in this case based purely on race).
There is no correlation at all to gay couples. You just need to look at the issue beyond just "minority group not getting something it wants", and look at *why* we provide the benefits and ask if they make sense in the situation at hand.
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You can rant and rave about how liberals don't use common sense, and how they have no facts to base their opinions on, but you can't see how you do the same. How you use "logic" to twist something to fit the conservative/republican mindset.
Except that many liberals (especially on this issue) don't use common sense or logic to support their argument. And I *am* using common sense and logic to support mine. Seriously, your whole argument basically rests on the idea that you should just support the "cause" of a minority group because they're a minority and thus need your help or something. There's nothing else there. The attempts to compare interracial marriage with gay marriage are simply absurd. They fall down at the very first application of logic. The *only* thing those two things have in common is that both groups are viewed as minorities to you. That's it.
Relevant excerpts from Perez v. Sharp:
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Respondent contends that even if the races specified in the
statute are not by nature inferior to the Caucasian race, the
statute can be justified as a means of diminishing race tension
and preventing the birth of children who might become social
problems.
and...
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It is contended that interracial marriage has adverse effects not
only upon the parties thereto but upon their progeny. Respondent
relies on Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 [47 S.Ct. 584, 71 L.Ed.
1000], for the proposition that the state "may properly protect
itself as well as the children by taking steps which will prevent
the birth of offspring who will constitute a serious social
problem, even though such legislation must necessarily interfere
with a natural right." That case, however, involved a statute
authorizing sterilization of imbeciles following scientific
verification and the observance of procedural guarantees. In
Buck v. Bell the person sterilized was the feeble-minded child of
a feeble-minded mother and was herself the mother of an
illegitimate feeble-minded child.
and...
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Respondent maintains that Negroes are socially inferior and have
so been judicially recognized (e.g., Wolfe v. Georgia Ry. & Elec.
Co., 2 Ga.App. 499 [58 S.E. 899, 901]), and that the progeny of a
marriage between a Negro and a Caucasian suffer not only the
stigma of such inferiority but the fear of rejection by members
of both races. If they do, the fault lies not with their
parents, but with the prejudices in the community and the laws
that perpetuate those prejudices by giving legal force to the
belief that certain races are inferior. If miscegenous marriages
can be prohibited because of tensions suffered by the progeny,
mixed religious unions could be prohibited on the same
ground.
and in the other direction...
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There are now so many persons in the United States of mixed
ancestry, that the tensions upon them are already diminishing and
are bound to diminish even more in time.{fn.8} Already many of
the progeny of mixed marriages have made important contributions
to the community. In any event the contention that the
miscegenation laws prohibit interracial marriage because of its
adverse effects on the progeny is belied by the extreme racial
intermixture that it tolerates.
and...
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No law within the broad areas of state interest may be unreasonably
discriminatory or arbitrary. The state's interest in public
education, for example, does not empower the Legislature to compel
school children to receive instruction from public teachers only,
for it would thereby take away the right of parents to "direct the
upbringing and education of children under their control." (Pierce
v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-535 [45 S.Ct. 571, 69
L.Ed. 1070, 39 A.L.R. 468].) Again, the state's vital concern in
the prevention of crime and the mental health of its citizens does
not empower the Legislature to deprive "individuals of a right
which is basic to the perpetuation of a race--the right to have
offspring" by authorizing the sterilization of criminals upon an
arbitrary basis of classification and without a fair hearing.
(Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 536 [62 S.Ct. 1110, 86 L.Ed.
1655].)
and...
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The right to marry is as fundamental as the right to send one's
child to a particular school or the right to have offspring.
Indeed, "We are dealing here with legislation which involves one
of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are
fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race."
It's hard to read that decision and not see the overwhelming abundance of mentions and references to procreation. Many of the legal references used refer specifically to the right to choose to have children. The court clearly saw a connection between marrying the person of your choice and having children with the person of your choice. And why not? It's only been in the past couple decades with the rise of the gay marriage argument that this idea has been essentially scrubbed from our social awareness. But that's yet another example of cart-before-horse logic. Those who want to argue for extending marriage benefits to gay couples have systematically worked to argue that marriage has nothing to do with procreation. And now today we sit here arguing over whether or not marriage and procreation were historically related by those considering both the laws applicable to marriage and the benefits marriage provides.
It's a pretty extreme example of dishonesty to argue that gay marriages are the same as interracial marriages. Yet many do anyway. They do it because they've been taught that it's about the group being denied something which must be redressed, and not about looking at why the thing exists in the first place and asking "does it make sense to provide it to this group?".