Gay Marriage - For or Against?
I was having a little chat about things related to gay. It started by talking about the whole World of Warcraft mess. Apparently they banned a guild from forming because it was a gay themed guild. They covered themselves saying it is because they don't allow guilds whose themes are sensitive political, social, blah blah issues. Some people think they are just bigots. Maybe so. I don't really care. Even if they did ban the guild because they are bigots they are perfectly within their rights. It's their world and thus their rules. If you don't like it, stop paying them to play their game. You have no right to play that game and no rights within that game other than the ones they let you have. This is in fact how it works. But I digress.
So as Sam and I discussed it I was saying I wanted to see some tax numbers on the whole gay marriage thing. Mostly I don't care whether gay marriage is legal or not. If my boy and I decide someday to do some sort of making our committment officially forever or whatever we may choose marriage if it is an option, but if it isn't I won't lose sleep. Especially since I don't really think marriage is a good symbol of forever but that's a totally different argument. But I wanted to see the numbers. I'm so sick of religious and civil rights arguments based on fluff and feelings. Screw your feelings and your god how does it affect my bottom line. So finally I did a search and found some. YAY!
This article talks about the work of a few economists to try and put the numbers together. Now obviously there are some assumptions since pinpointing the number of gay couples and the number of those that would marry if they could is not a hard science, but we'll accept their assumptions and look at some numbers.
What I love about the article is that both gay couples and the government are arguing for the right to screw themselves. That's awesome! See if you look at some of the numbers, there is still in effect a "marriage penalty" in the tax system. Most couples pay more in taxes than they would filing separately. So gay couples who marry would pay more. Two gay people making roughly $30-35K a year each would pay about $1500 more in taxes per year filing as a married couple than they would filing separately. HAHA!!! So why in the hell would you want to get married. I believe it is simply because people are saying they can't. Tends to make people get all irrationally and want to do things that are not in their best interest. It's not like marriage changes the situation in any other way. Most employers recognize domestic partner benefits and the rights for the estate after death and all that good stuff can be taken care of with a simple Will and Living Will in case of the whole life support argument. Honestly, what gay people should do is give up the marriage thing in exchange for some more partner benefits being codified in law. The right would go for it to end the struggle they aren't sure they'd win and gay people would be better off. Silly homos.
And the Goverment is trying to screw itself too. This blind religious ideological crap they are spewing are robbing them of an estimated $0.3 - $1.3 Billion! In tax revenue. Crunching some conservative numbers of the number of new married gay couples paying more in taxes would mean more money in the war chests for them to attack oil producing countries with. People, pick your battles.
So in conclusion I have decided I am Pro Gay Marriage. Unless gay people smarten up and create a bill to get the benefits without the tax hike. This is simply because if you give in and let the homos marry then you will be increasing the tax revenue. Now likely it will be misspent, but a larger pool at the top means some of it might trickle down to a good cause. Plus, I'm a security professional. Republicans misspending tax dollars on their campaign of fear lines my pockets so it is all good.
So that is my stand, based on numbers and facts rather than emotions and the gospel according to saint bigot. To all the homos who want to whine about equal rights and call me a bastard and to all the right wing nut jobs who condemn me to hell for loving my boyfriend all I have to say it "My argument holds up under empirical testing. Nah nah nah nah :-P"