In the New York Daily News, Cato Institute Chairman Robert Levy makes the conservative argument for marriage equality:
No compelling reason has been proffered for sanctioning heterosexual but not homosexual marriages. Nor is a ban on gay marriage a close fit for attaining the goals cited by proponents of such bans. If the goal, for example, is to strengthen the institution of marriage, a more effective step might be to bar no-fault divorce and premarital cohabitation. If the goal is to ensure procreation, then infertile and aged couples should be precluded from marriage.
Instead, most states have implemented an irrational and unjust system that provides significant benefits to just-married heterosexuals while denying benefits to a male or female couple who have enjoyed a loving, committed, faithful and mutually reinforcing relationship over several decades. That’s not the way it has to be. Government benefits triggered by marriage could just as easily be triggered by other objective criteria, leaving the definition of marriage in the hands of private institutions.
Yet our politicians, unwilling to privatize marriage, seem congenitally unable to extricate themselves from our most intimate relationships. One would hope, in the coming months and years, that more enlightened federal and state legislators will have the courage and decency to resist morally abhorrent and constitutionally suspect restrictions based on sexual orientation. Gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights and the same respect and dignity accorded to all Americans.
Read more in the New York Daily News.
As the New Jersey legislature prepares to extend full marriage equality, an African American Minister speaks about how his experience in the civil rights movement and Bruce Springsteen go hand in hand with support for the rights of all to marry, regardless of their sexual orientation:
The Civil Rights Movement ”back in the day” has become alive in this “Movement.” As an African American clergyman who was a foot soldier in the “Movement,” I have no time to debate the differences in the struggles of black persons and the struggles of gays and lesbians. Of course there are differences! But, prejudice, bias, and bigotry are prejudice, bias and bigotry whether directed at persons who are black, or persons who are gay. I long for the day when more persons in the African American community will become advocates/allies of gay rights, and more gay persons will become allies/advocates of the many issues important to the black community. I have for years sought to be a “bridge over the troubled waters” that divide the poor black and brown community and the gay community. The passage of the marriage equality bill may signal the beginning of new efforts to deal with the education and econonomic issues that confront
poor brown and black people.
One of my friends and mentors is a writer and teacher who lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. She writes of those who stand on the side lines, who are afraid to take a stand, who are infected with the anger and bitterness of others. She says of writing, but it applies to me as I live my life as a clergyman or to Bruce Springsteen as he lives his amazing public life as a musical icon, and to all of us who support marriage equality and all of life.
My friend writes words that really ring true when she says “the issue is not whether our writing will be political. If we are silent, our silence is political. If we write our writing is political. No one has seen the night sky exactly from your trajectory. No one has loved exactly the people and places you have loved. Who will tell that part of the earth’s story, if you do not?”
Read more from Rev. Gil Caldwell at Liberty Education Forum.
As the country focuses on the debate of marriage equality in the states and in Congress, it is important to recognize the impact equal rights have to individual gay and lesbian families. Chuck Vazquez, a City Councilman from Cathedral City, California speaks about what marriage means to him:
Right now while everyone is getting ready for the Holidays, and all the celebrations and special times they bring, next years political pot is getting ready to boil over with issues. Among those issues will once again be Marriage. People loudly and profoundly will lend their voices to what “they” believe the definition of marriage should be and who should have the right to marry. Millions of dollars will pour into the campaigns, people will get angry, rude, offended, insulted and hurt on both sides of the issue. What so many seem to forget is that these are ALL real people, whether they are for or against, that are embroiled in this battle, they are part of our communities, they are neighbors, friends, co-workers and even sometimes family. I am not here to change anyone’s mind, it’s not for me to tell some else how they should view or think about an issue, however I would like to ask EVERYONE involved to open their minds to the other side.
Read more at Liberty Education Forum.
Susan Young is a teacher, author and active community member talks about her support for her openly gay son, and how laws should afford him the right to marry just as any other couple would:
We have a gay son. He has a distinct masculine identity, dark two-day unshaven scruff. He loves fast cars. He drinks Starbucks. He argues vociferously. He can act bull-headed, and bite like a scorpion. Like the rest of us, he works, plays, sleeps and eats. He calls almost daily and I end each conversation, “I love you, hon.”
He echoes, “Love you, too.”
If my son ever loves a man enough to want to be a husband, I’ll take their commitment as one more strand to strengthen the institution of marriage. How could their bond possibility destroy the one I have with his father? I don’t get that. And to answer Zac’s kindergarten question, “Can boys marry boys?”
Why not?
More love in the world.
Click here to read the rest of Young’s article.
The New York Times does an in-depth analysis of all the higher costs for same-sex couples as opposed to heterosexual couples, including health care, estate and income taxes, pensions and retirement acounts.
And for years, we’ve heard from gay couples about all the extra health, legal and other costs they bear. So we set out to determine what they were and to come up with a round number — a couple’s lifetime cost of being gay.
Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.
These numbers will vary, depending on a couple’s income and circumstance. Gay couples earning, say, $80,000, could have health insurance costs similar to our hypothetical higher-earning couple, but they might well owe more in income taxes than their heterosexual counterparts. For wealthy couples with a lot of assets, on the other hand, the cost of being gay could easily spiral into the millions.
Nearly all the extra costs that gay couples face would be erased if the federal government legalized same-sex marriage. One exception is the cost of having biological children, but we felt it was appropriate to include this given our goal of outlining every cost gay couples incur that heterosexual couples may not.
In challenging economic times, same-sex couples should be afforded the opportunity to invest in businesses to help grow the economy, not burdened by higher costs.
