More pointless things for people to complain about

[tniassaint.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh the census.

All the rancor surrounding it are simply amusing and astounding. There is nothing wrong with census taking. There is nothing wrong with the questions being asked. As for the craziness regarding the encouragement that the US Census Bureau is giving to gay and lesbian couples to indicate that they are married; who really cares? Truth is that this information is not available to the public. The public moral fiber is not threatened in anyway and the data has little effect society’s acceptance or lace of acceptance of such issues. Truth is that the people that don’t support gay marriage still won’t support it just because the gay couple next door privately checked a box on a private form that will be counted and handled far from the public eye (at least for 72 years).

Maybe there will be some statistical release that indicates that the number of gay couples living in a self proclaimed state of matrimony is a larger percentage of the population than we had previously - again, so what? If you are a parent, parent your children as you see fit. These folk, the ones going off on this subject, these people will simply never accept same sex couples.

As for the government, if they want to gather marital status for statistical purposes and the determination of proper representation, I could care less. Issues like this will hardly matter to the purpose of the census. Most of the data is used for simple unrelated statics and demographics. It’s also Constitutionally required. Anyone claiming to be a Constitutionalist has to support the taking of the census.

As for accusations of people being “liars” if they are half of a same sex couple and they indicate they are “married” on the census; oh please! It is not as if this lends any credibility or credence to the status. Government has not place, no place at all, in defining the interpersonal relations of anyone. Marital questions and all marital supports, recognition and etc should be removed from government. Count the people in the residence. The selection of “married” on some form is only validating to the person checking it -  and I am certain they can validate this in their deeds without some form.

So what? Why should anyone give a crap about a gay couple checking married on a form that will not effect any sort of real change as a result of the mark?

Why should government even have any official recognition of the marital status of a couple?

Comments

[mijan.livejournal.com]

1. If the tax laws treated all individuals identically, whether they were married or not, I'd have no problem with it. However, as long as heterosexual married couples get tax perks, it strikes me as disgustingly unfair and ethically wrong for a legally secular nation to deny those benefits to gay couples.

2. I'm not allowed to be on my wife's health insurance policy. She's not allowed to be on mine. Why? Because our state doesn't recognize same-sex marriage. We could establish any contract we'd like, and write a mile-high stack of paperwork giving her my power-of-attorney, next-of-kin, sole beneficiary, or whatever... but they still won't let us have one family health insurance plan.

3. Unfortunately, there are no contracts, piles of paperwork, that would ever give my wife and me the LEGAL benefits of a married couple.

[tniassaint.livejournal.com]

1 Agreed - and I am hetero and married. This makes little sense to me.

2 Agreed

3 Well, it could be managed; but with difficulty. My point would be that such wrangling shouldn't be necessary. If I, as a straight person, can make (and even break) such legal bindings with the simplicity that the current status quo allows, so should you.

4 (I added one) The title of marriage has no place in the legal world. People who will not accept you will never do so just because of the legal pronouncement. Those who will don't care about the legal side. It really should be just about how you two see each other and the contractual crap should be left in the governmental and legal worlds.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Cool... two comments.

Re: #3. Actually the simple fact that #2 is true means there's no way, EVEN with all the contracts in the world, that we could get all the same benefits. There's NO way for me to be on my wife's health insurance where I live, and actually, that was a HUGE difficulty for us for a year.

Re: #4. Agreed. Leave "marriage" to whatever religion (or non-religion) you want, but if people want legal status as a family unit, they'd have to get a civil union certificate or something. I'm pretty sure they do it that way in several countries. I think it's an excellent idea. I mean, for that matter, I'm married in my religion - I'm a Unitarian Universalist. My church considers me married. So... if "marriage" is religious, as so many anti-gay-marriage people claim, how would they argue against that? That only some religions count? I wonder how that debate would turn out. But seriously, I'm not out to change anyone else's religious beliefs... I'm just trying to live my own life and take care of my family, just like anyone else.