Among other important elections, on November 4 Californians will be voting on Proposition 8, a measure to amend the state Constitution in order to ban same-sex marriages. The polling has been very close, with a possible late break toward a “Yes” vote; this would effectively overturn a California Supreme Court decision from this May that held that same-sex couples had a right to marry under the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. Eventually, of course, gay marriage will be accepted throughout the country, and we will look back on today as the bad old days of discrimination. But that’s cold comfort to the couples who would like to celebrate their love for each other right now. You can donate and learn more about the measure at No On 8.
We are occasionally asked why a Physics Blog spends time talking about religion and politics and all that nonsense. A perfectly correct answer is that this is not a Physics Blog, it’s a blog by some people who happen to be physicists, and we talk about things that interest us, blah blah blah. But there is another, somewhat deeper, answer. Physics is not just a technical pastime played with numerical simulations and Feynman diagrams; nor is it a purely instrumental technique for unlocking Nature’s secrets so as to build better TV sets. Physics, as it is currently practiced, is a paradigm for a naturalistic way of understanding the world. And that’s a worldview that has consequences stretching far beyond the search for the Higgs boson.
Charles Taylor makes an admirable stab at a very difficult task: understanding the premodern mindset from our modern vantage point. (Via 3 Quarks Daily.) There are many ways in which our perspective differs from that of someone living five hundred years ago in a pre-scientific age, but Taylor emphasizes one important one:
Almost everyone can agree that one of the big differences between us and our ancestors of five hundred years ago is that they lived in an “enchanted” world, and we do not; at the very least, we live in a much less “enchanted” world. We might think of this as our having “lost” a number of beliefs and the practices which they made possible. But more, the enchanted world was one in which these forces could cross a porous boundary and shape our lives, psychic and physical. One of the big differences between us and them is that we live with a much firmer sense of the boundary between self and other. We are “buffered” selves. We have changed.
Our ancestors lived in an enchanted world, where the boundary between the physical and the moral and the spiritual was not very clearly drawn. It made perfect sense, at the time, to attribute to the external world the same kinds of meanings and impulses that one found in the human world — purposes, consciousnesses, moral judgments. One of the great accomplishments of modernity was to construct a new way of understanding the world — one based on understandable, formal rules. These days we understand that the world is not magic.
This change in perspective has led to extraordinary changes in how we live, including the technology on which we are sharing these words. But the consequences go enormously deeper than that, and it is no exaggeration to say that our society has still not come fully to grips with the ramifications of understanding the world around us as fundamentally natural and rules-based. That’s the point at which the worldview suggested by science has had a profound effect on moral reasoning.
For our present purposes, the most important consequence is this: notions of “right” and “wrong” are not located out there in the world, waiting to be discovered, in the same sense that a new kind of elementary particle (or even a new law of physics) is located out there in the world. Right and wrong aren’t parts of the fundamental description of reality. That description has to do with wave functions and Hamiltonian dynamics, not with ethical principles. That is what the world is made of, at a deep level. Everything else — morality, love, aesthetics — is up to us.
Which is not to say that moral concepts don’t exist. It’s just that they are things we construct, not things that we come to understand by examining the world around us. To Plato or Aristotle, as well as their Medieval followers, the kinds of reasoning used to tackle moral questions wasn’t all that different from that used to tackle questions about the natural world. One looked at the world, noticed that certain things seemed to serve certain purposes, and (somewhat presumptuously) elevated those appearances to laws of nature. Some sort of conception of Natural Law has been an important strand of philosophical thinking all the way through to the modern era, even showing up in the Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”).
But it’s wrong. There aren’t Natural Laws that distinguish right from wrong in human behavior. There are only Laws of Nature, which can account for the behavior of the complicated chemical reactions that make up human beings, but stand strictly silent about what those human beings “should” be doing. Things happen in the world, not because of any underlying purpose, but because of the combination of initial conditions and the laws of physics. The fundamental category mistake underlying the idea of Natural Law should have become perfectly obvious and universally accepted in the years after the scientific revolution, but it stubbornly persists, because people want to believe it. If the laws governing right behavior were inherent in Nature, waiting to be discovered, everything would be so much easier than if we have to work them out ourselves.
Just because moral instructions are not located out there in the world, immutable and awaiting discovery, doesn’t mean that “anything goes.” It means that moral guidelines are invented by human beings. Too many people fear that if this sort of moral relativism is true (which it is), then there is no way to denounce Hitler or Charles Manson from a standpoint of ethical absolutes. Well, what of it? I don’t need to live in a world where Hitler was wrong because the universe tells me so — I feel that he was wrong myself, and fortunately many other people agree with me. So I and these other like-minded people sit down to work out among ourselves what rules we want to live by, and we decide that people like Hitler are bad and should be stopped. The codification of moral rules does not come from examining the world or thinking about logical necessities; it comes from individual human beings examining their own desires, and communicating with other human beings to formulate rules of common consent. Some people might prefer that moral rules have a more timeless, universal standing; but personal preference does not affect the working of the actual universe.
Gay marriage is a excellent example of a rule that would be almost universally agreed upon by individual human beings negotiating in good faith, and it is to our culture’s endless embarrassment that at this late stage we are still struggling to get it right. Deep down, there are only two arguments against gay marriage. One, which is the one that actually drives most people’s views on the matter, is that it’s icky. They just don’t like the idea, and therefore don’t want it to exist. There is little point arguing against that, but we can hope that increasing normalization of the idea of homosexuality will cause such attitudes to become increasingly rare.
The other argument is that gay marriage is a violation of Natural Law. That the two human sexes clearly belong together (“Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”) and the institution of marriage is a sacred covenant between a man and a woman. But once we understand how the universe works, in our post-Enlightenment era, there is no reason to take arguments like this seriously. Nature doesn’t have anything to say about the moral status of two individuals falling in love and formalizing their relationship. It is a matter for us individual human beings to get together and decide how we should structure our legal system. We have long ago decided to recognize the special legal status of two people who love each other and wish to formalize their status as a legal union. Marriage is a wholly invented institution; there is nothing “natural” about it. And there is simply no reason — ickiness aside — to limit that institution to heterosexual couples. There might be, if the existence of gay married couples had directly deleterious effects on other members of society; but it doesn’t, crazy exhortations about the looming threat to traditional families notwithstanding.
Opponents of gay marriage are either squeamish and prejudiced, or philosophically confused. Eliminating prejudice takes time, but the situation is gradually improving. But there is even less excuse for the philosophical confusion surrounding issues like this. And if it takes a Physics Blog to sort things out, we’re happy to take up the challenge.
I’m with Otis, adoption agencies should certainly have the right to create hierarchical lists of ideal adoptive couples in which straight white protestants invariably occupy the very highest echelons of idealized matrimonial and societal perfection and where gay couples fall somewhere between interracial migrant workers and single mulatto alcoholics.
I have to say that at 100 replies into this post, the apparent intelligence of the average reader here is is shockingly lower than I had anticipated for a particle physics blog.
If Sean was really against discrimination and unfairness, he would call for an abolition of all special priviliges and benefits bestowed by the government on married people, gay or straight. Many of these benefits, especially the financial ones, come at the expense of the unmarried.
RationalZen,
I’m too lazy to blockquote right now, but in short, what you said or implied is this:
1. Being gay is a choice. We could “all choose” to be gay and be done with the species.
2. You find homosexuality equivalent, or at least comparable (you actually compared it!) to raping women and infecting them with AIDS!!! Wow.
(You’re not very rational, and CLEARLY your zen is screwed up.)
3. You think there’s a slippery slope from homosexuality to incest and poligamy. You say that you don’t make it your argument. Fine. But despite that, you do believe it happens. You say you’re just drawing the line, but the line you’re drawing is on that imaginary, invented slope. The slope isn’t even there, your line is just hanging in empty space.
There are real arguments to be had against sexual or even romantic relations between blood relatives, or even poligamy (as I’m sure there are arguments for). There is no such argument against homosexuality.
Blake sputtered: “places gay people far higher on his list of “ickyness” and “untreated mental illness” than he does for nighttime lamp-post fuckers. ”
Talk to some real live heterosexuals. You’ll find, if you can get them to speak honestly, that they agree with me.
“Wow, that’s some sharp thinkin’ there dude!”
Alas, I can’t say the same in your case; all I see is a collection of unsupported assertions, and not even an attempt at refutation. Which is understandable.
“the apparent intelligence of the average reader here is is shockingly lower than I had anticipated for a particle physics blog.”
But it’s *not* a physics blog….Sean emphasized that from the outset. And I think we’ve completed the proof of the following statement: “Being a physicist has absolutely zero causal correlation with liberal political views.” Which sort of agrees with Sean’s claims about natural law. Though it simultaneously refutes the [totally bizarre and self-contradictory] main claim of his post……
Finally, assuming that anyone who disagrees with you must be of lower IQ is not exactly evidence of a high IQ, no?
Hey, King,
How can you seriously expect a refutation of what you posted? Half the people probably thought you were joking. Ever heard of Poe’s Law?
I’m a heterosexual male, and last time I checked I was real and live. You suffer from what many religious suffer which is that you think people deeply inside are really like you.
applmak said:
What are you talking about!?!? I think you need to reread post 76…or improve your reading comprehension. My point is that gay marriage is being pushed as an “Equality For All” movement—if you doubt this, read the signs supporting Prop 8 in CA. However, the reality is that most who support gay marriage are not *truly* about equality for all. For example, gay marriage is advocated while polygamy is ignored and marginalized. Still, it so happens that most of the reasons used to advocate for gay marriage could apply equally well to other types of marriages. This movement is NOT about equality for all. For some people is it, but for the majority of people advocating for gay marriage, it is not.
I honestly don’t have a clue how your response relates at all to what I wrote.
What is “sacred” about marriage, anyway? I’m curious.
Is it best for kids, of either gender, to be raised by a male and a female who represent the archetypal male and female, whatever those archetypes are? What is the benefit? What might be a detriment? Are those archetypes absolute, and should males and females each be forced to strictly follow those archetypes as well, for the children’s benefit? Should the children be moved, or their marriages dissolved if they do not strictly follow the archetypes of male and female?
Is it best for children to be raised by a male and a female who love each other very much, and can share that love with the children? Is this perfectly ideal situation realistic? If it is realistic, how is it that love and caring between any two people, despite physical gender anomalies, is inferior?
If love between the parents is the important thing, how much more likely is love to actually exist between two people when they married each other purely for love of each other, and not for any notion, strictly, of some ideal family with kids situation that they envisioned, or because they had to get married because of pregnancy, etc….
What is the rational justification for drawing the line of marriage as an agreement between a man and a woman, sanctioned by a society? I would like a rational response that is well thought out, not some sloppy blatherings.
I think it was the Zen-associated person who mentioned balance. I’m assuming that’s one of those “cosmic” balance things, of two forces that are opposite, or work together, or whatever else you’d like to manufacture that might wriggle its way into appearing reasonable. Is it the penis and the vagina that create the opposing forces of balance that are important? Or is it the archetype of male and female? Some mish-mash of both? Perhaps the archetype is, instead, the balance between dominance and submission? Male being dominant, of course, and female being submissive. I’m not really sure. But I am pretty sure that in Zen you work to incorporate them both within your own essence, as one, which is you.
Actually, in the interest of fairness, it seems only right that the societal benefits of marriage should be eliminated if they can’t be extended to all people. To even address the radical extremes of reasoning; personally, I can’t imagine being married to more than one person at a time. I’d loose my sanity. But if some people want to, why not? Let there be something like a primary spouse, and the rest dependents, much like children. Work something out with the money. There are many societies that function perfectly well where there are several parents for the children. The children get even more attention, I’d imagine.
And that, I think, is what you’ll find important for children, more than trying to zero-in their skulls on some non-existent archetype of absolute gender definitions — it’s the attention, love and interaction with the children that is important. It’s listening to them, and engaging with them. It’s showing them that they are safe and loved. It’s helping them to become the best person that they can be. It’s discovering this, alongside them. The qualifications are not measured in stereotypical archetypes — they qualification are measured in the heart and mind.
It seems that is something we might all benefit from.
As of comment #37 this ridiculous SW continues to obliterate left hand text, so that any continuity between comments is destroyed.
Can NO ONE do anything about this ridiculous situation ??
For some reason, I find that unlettered fools such as HM Amir, frequently flatter themselves with assumptions that their superstitious wackloonery is somehow actually deserving of refutation. I confess that I am at a loss to explain the delusions that these unfortunate kooks seem to so often suffer from, but it goes without saying that no reasoned, sensible person would waste a nanosecond of their time refuting convictions of such obvious pig-ignorance.
andyo:
Actually I did not say that at all. Blockquoting would have helped you understand a little better.
I said that hypothetically if we all made that choice (as obviously we are not all homosexual by birth currently), we would be extinct in one generation. If you disagree with that you, Sarah Palin and Jenny McCarthy all have a lot in common.
Again, I didn’t actually say that at all.
What I was stating was that some things are acceptable in one culture but deplorable in others.
Close, but not quite.
What I said was that if you base your argument in favor of gay marriage on it being equal rights that a slippery slope is created. Which is true.
If marriage between two adults is going to be lumped as one of our unalienable rights, then so be it. A consequence of that will be repealing incestral and polygamy laws.
If as a society we are okay with polygamy laws, incestral laws and the like that are limiting marriage between two consenting adults for whatever reason there may be, then we are okay with limiting marriage to people that fit in some bucket. Now it’s up to society to figure out what that bucket looks like, which is exactly what is happening. To fault someone for having a different color bucket is just dumb.
Then I clarified that I’m not against gay marriage because of the slippery slope, I have stated more than once that I’m against marriage as a government institution in general.
The argument against blood relatives reproducing does in fact apply to homosexuals. With homosexual sexual relationships the extinction vortex is just more accelerated.
Any argument against polygamy can also be applied to homosexuality, and currently is. Simply saying the argument doesn’t exist, well relative to you is true. Relative to reality is not.
Homosexual behavior is observed in a wide range of animals. This also holds for transgender or gender reverse role playing. There are maybe a number of evolutionary reasons for this, such as these behaviors can be a sneeker strategy by beta males to get access to females. I am less sure about female homosexuality, or lesbianism. However, this behavior appears fairly persistent and if there are genetic or epigenetic bases for this it is clearly not completely selected against.
Gayness, it’s out there whether you like it or not.
Lawrence B. Crowell
RationalZen,
OK, so NOW I will blockquote. Emphasis mine.
How is this not comparing our deploring of raping women and infecting them with AIDS with your deploring of homosexuality? You are basically saying that my accusing you of ignorance is the same as those cultures accusing us of ignorance. You’ll deny it, because it’s such a preposterous and ridiculously horrible thing to have said, so maybe we should ask the others what they got out of it, shall we?
So there’s no slippery slope, except when it is created. Well done. In fairness, you probably thought I meant that there’s a slope for homosexuals to go on into polygamy and incest, (which is so ridiculous I never thought it could even cross your mind, my fault for not being clearer). The slope I meant is the one you just created. It is imaginary. It doesn’t exist.
That’s not the argument against blood relatives having relations. It has to do with the suffering of the offspring, not the extinction of the species. The extinction of the species could never happen (as you contradictorily pointed out) because most of us aren’t incestuous. Besides, homosexuality has no reason to be detrimental to evolution. As has been pointed out by me and others, there are hypotheses where it even could help, but what is known is that it doesn’t hinder the species.
Arguments such as? If you say something exists, you better be able to put up.
Going from gay marriage to incest and polygamy is NOT a slippery slope. If you are straight and I am gay, you are allowed to marry your true love and I am not. But we are both UNABLE to marry our siblings and more than one person. HUGE difference.
Prohibiting gay marriage is closer to sexism. Why can’t I marry a female when all the men in the world are allowed to? Just because I’m a woman?? That’s sexism.
I don’t think that accepting gay marriage is equivalent to accepting all forms of committed relationships. Perhaps in some theoretical sense, but we’re arguing policy here. From Wikipedia’s article on Polygamy:
So when we’re talking about polygamy, we’re mostly talking about 1 man, many women. Note the few sentences about “status symbol”. The article imples that polygamy has historically been used to increase your social status. Should women be thought of as social status increasers? I don’t think so. This is a totally different world than marriage. In fact, polygamy has more to do with having more than one car per person in a household, and less to do with love or marriage.
Now that we’ve drawn a clear line between polygamy and gay marriage, let’s not continue discussing it, and stay on topic. Please?
joulesm,
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the most homophobic groups are those within patriarchal religions. They’re the ones who started this prop. 8 shenanigans too. You are pretty much right.
“Homosexual behavior is observed in a wide range of animals. This also holds for transgender or gender reverse role playing. There are maybe a number of evolutionary reasons for this, such as these behaviors can be a sneeker strategy by beta males to get access to females. I am less sure about female homosexuality, or lesbianism. However, this behavior appears fairly persistent and if there are genetic or epigenetic bases for this it is clearly not completely selected against.”
There isn’t necessarily an evolutionary explanation for each and every trait. I would guess that many characteristics of organisms simply hitch a ride because organisms that have those characteristics are carrying some other trait that is really for survival.
“I’m assuming that’s one of those “cosmic” balance things, of two forces that are opposite, or work together, or whatever else you’d like to manufacture that might wriggle its way into appearing reasonable. Is it the penis and the vagina that create the opposing forces of balance that are important?”
The penis and vagina came about through evolution. They don’t have anything to do with cosmic balance, it just happened to be a way of reproduction that worked.
As far as polygamy, I think it was just an excuse used by powerful men to be able to have sex with a variety of women while still being “married”. In tribal societies it probably had something to do with control of resources but for the Mormons I think it started off as an excuse to get laid a lot.
“Right and wrong aren’t parts of the fundamental description of reality. That description has to do with wave functions and Hamiltonian dynamics, not with ethical principles. That is what the world is made of, at a deep level.”
Wave functions and Hamiltonian dynamics exist only in the minds of physics professors. Yes they make good experimental predictions, but they are models of reality that may be superseded by better models tomorrow. Taking them to be what the “world is made of at a deep level” is a bit naive.
Also I would say that the ethical principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence ARE self-evident truths. Ethical principles do exist without having to have a committee set out what they are. Sure people don’t always live up to them, but real life is more complicated than physics and that doesn’t mean the ethical principles don’t really exist. I would say they are on as solid a ground as abstract principles as “hilbert space” and other concepts in modern physics.
An interesting, at least to me, aside to this is the sex drive itself.
Most of us like sexual stimulation. Even when no other person is involved. It feels good. And some of us even get very creative.
There is only one way of experiencing this pleasure that results in a children being born.
But none of us are limited to experiencing pleasure in just that way, and probably nobody limits themselves so. (ok, a minor standard deviation error)
This is a universal within the human sphere.
Love, where you want to be with another person for the rest of your life, is somewhat separate from our sexuality. It’s something more than just sexual stimulation.
To my mind, that love, whatever it might be, is the sacred part of any marriage. I don’t know if you can have such a thing with 10 wives or husbands. Maybe that’s an argument for another day — a slippery slope.
But whether or not anything actually sacred exists, that profound sense of finding completeness, familiarity and comfort in another human being, where their well being and happiness matters, down to the core, at least as much as your own, is perhaps one of the most profound and personally altering things we can experience.
This exists, despite gender. And I believe such a positive force between people ought to be enshrined within a society. We need more such examples, to help us along our way, where self-centeredness rules so strongly.
I have been thinking.
There are two issues. One is that gay people can’t get married. The other is that married heterosexual people get tax breaks, especially if they have kids. The first one has been discussed a lot on here, but the second is neglected. It seems unfair to me because people with children actually benefit more from public services (as their kids use schools, hospitals, when those without children don’t).
OK this probably doesn’t work in the USA where there are no public services and all the taxes go to the military, but I think my argument works in the UK and Europe pretty well.
Anyway, I have the perfect solution. Allow gays and lesbians to marry, but change the tax laws so that married people pay more tax, especially if they have children. Anyone can get married if they want to, but nobody would do it for the sake of financial gain.
Then it will all be fair and everyone will be happy!
Vote for me!
andyo:
Please don’t quote me if you’re not going to include it in it’s entirety.
It’s likely you’re not actually reading the entire thing, hence your complete misunderstanding of what I’m actually saying. That being said, if you’re going to quote me, please don’t cherry pick my statements to emphasize your misguided understanding of my words.
That being said, my response:
1)
You’d have to be an idiot if you didn’t think that an instantaneous change to homosexuality in our world would not require conscious choice. So in my hypothetical, as I stated, it would require a choice.
I didn’t say that it’s a choice to be gay.
Can I say it any clearer than that? Hopefully I used simple enough grammar as to eliminate any confusion.
2)
Unless you have sever reading comprehension problems, it’s very clear that my usage of rape and aids was referring to an act that WE believe to be deplorable, yet is acceptable to other CULTURES.
Hence my usage of the words culturally relative, as in relative to one’s culture. In more simple terms, there are other cultures that do things that we as an American culture find deplorable, like dog-fighting or the rest of the infinite set, that is perfectly acceptable in other cultures. Gay marriage falls into that category in my opinion, it’s adversity or acceptance is very relative to one’s culture.
So you first said, “2. You find homosexuality equivalent, or at least comparable (you actually compared it!) to raping women and infecting them with AIDS!!! Wow.
Well actually reading what I said it’s obvious that I don’t believe, nor did I allude to the notion, that homosexuality is equivalent to, or even comparable to AIDS.
I didn’t say they were equivalent.
So when you asked, “How is this not comparing our deploring of raping women and infecting them with AIDS with your deploring of homosexuality?”
That’s at least closer. I didn’t actually compare them at all, what I did was say that hostility towards gay marriage is culturally relative, and provided a similar example of something that is generally deplorable in the US that is acceptable in other cultures. I guess I could have substituted dog fighting (just ask Mike Vick how we feel about that), arranged marriage, prostitution, or another member of the infinite set of things that are perfectly normal outside of American culture.
I said they were analogous, I didn’t say they were comparable nor equivalent.
Hopefully that is more clear.
3) I must say, I haven’t/likely won’t look up my materials from high school Biology class. That being said I’m pretty sure that at least at that time, perhaps it’s changed, is that the number one danger with inbreeding was a slide in the heterozygosity that would ultimately lead to an extinction of the species. I remember it being like G or F vortex or something like that.
Feel free and prove me wrong.
What suffering is there for the offspring, and why do we care. If the majority of us are not incestuous then we shouldn’t really care that a small number choose to be right? Is it not their right as two consenting adults?
We allow a lot of behaviors that are potentially extremely damaging to the children that we don’t really care to disallow, why do we care about this one in particular then?
I think that it’s fairly obvious that an entire generation of homosexual people would be pretty detrimental to our species, and render us extinct in one generation. A priori comes to mind.
Not grasping that point is not understanding the basics of the birds and the bees 😉
4) Regarding polygamy, I have only heard on argument against it. Tax and legal implications.
The same basis that many oppose, at least openly perhaps there’s a small “bradley effect” happening.
I personally don’t agree, but again, I’m not in the camp that thinks the government should have anything to do with marriage, straight or curvy.
Sean et al.,
You’re right. Reasonable people willing to negotiate in good faith can come together and hammer out an extremely versatile and powerful ethical framework based on principles like rational decision-making in the interests of promoting human happiness and an unwillingness to make rules that don’t serve some empirically-measurable purpose. It’s a great system, and if everyone agreed to live by it we’d by and large be happier and more fulfilled people.
Unfortunately, as many of the comments in this thread demonstrate, there are lots of people out there who are not reasonable and who will not negotiate in good faith and will never agree to sideline their own personal prejudices even when these prejudices make no real sense and serve no useful function whatever. In short, some people are just jerks.
It’s not enough for us just to assemble a robust and reasonable set of ethical protocols. We also have to find a way to defend the integrity of these protocols from, well, yahoos and jerks. We have to be willing to actively push our agenda in the public sphere, and actively defend our ethics as being fundamentally better. Because they are and it’s important that we have the guts to say so forcefully. Our way offers flexibility and increases peoples’ freedom to follow their own path. It removes arbitrary and capricious barriers. It allows us to change with the times. And the foundational principles of these protocols are rooted in logical and empirical considerations open to anyone who’s willing to examine them.
It’s not enough for us pointy-headed intellectuals just to say that yes, these things are self-evident and yes, this is how people ought to live. We must fight for that, and that will require academics to become much more politically engaged.
applmak:
I stated that using equal rights as your platform for supporting gay marriage, then there becomes a gray area with other laws that prohibit marriage between two consenting adults that love each other.
There isn’t a clear line that has been drawn there, as it seems that most people that are arguing in favor of gay marriage are taking the stance that gay couples are being denied a right that is granted to straight couples (but not all, just most).
There are a number of people like me that don’t oppose gay marriage because of some ickiness factor as is being trivialized by some, but believe that there are real consequences that are far reaching if that platform succeeds.
For me I grew up with friends from homosexual, polygamous and regular families, there isn’t an ickiness factor for any of them, they were all very well adjusted kids. I do believe that there will be many arguments for the same rights that are about to potentially be granted in California, and they will win.
Peter Coles asserts:
“OK this probably doesn’t work in the USA where there are no public services”
NO public services? Hmmm, my city has a fire department, a police department, roads that are well maintained, a clean water supply. Health care could be more accessible and none of these items listed is perfect, but saying there are no public services is ridiculous.
“all the taxes go to the military”
The pentagon budget is certainly overblown, but large shares of taxes go to social security, welfare, and medicare. And to scientific research. No, all taxes do not go to the military.
“The other is that married heterosexual people get tax breaks, especially if they have kids. The first one has been discussed a lot on here, but the second is neglected. It seems unfair to me because people with children actually benefit more from public services (as their kids use schools, hospitals, when those without children don’t).”
Having married people pay more taxes is probably the most absurd suggestion I’ve seen posted here. Hospitals in the US are not generally a public service, married people with children pay more in health insurance than singles or couples without children. In the US schools are generally paid for by property taxes (which are frankly way too high in a lot of places).
I really like Mark R’s comments, because, strangely enough, they are the most clear to me. Maybe I’m just poetic by nature. He really takes a LOT of meaning and packs it into just a few sentences. I am jealous of that ability.
Anywho, RationalZen & andyo, I don’t understand what you are saying. In fact, it’s as if we aren’t even speaking the same language. Our worldviews are so far apart that it would take quite some time to resolve them. Of course, I assume these comments are endless and that we have an infinite amount of time, right?
For those not in-the-know, like I was, the tax break for adults with dependent minors came about in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. So it’s quite a recent phenomenon. I have no idea why it was considered important then to give parents (both married and single) a tax break.
Parents are offered the tax break because of the extra expense involved in raising children. In case you don’t know, these expenses are quite huge. So why not give parents some breaks on taxes?