Gay Marriage: Excuses, Excuses

It can be fun listening to conservative talk radio with their coverage of the same-sex civil marriage hoo-hah (or “sodomite matrimony,” if you prefer; that was the term used in late February when Les Kinsolving filled in for Rusty Humphries on his national radio show) that’s been going on the past three weeks.  In and among the more standard “reasons” (excuses) why we can’t allow same-sex civil marriages — morality, tradition, kids, etc. — there are a few which are just way out there.  As best as I can figure, these people have thought about the question just enough to realize that reasons based squarely on religious grounds won’t fly when it comes to the courts, so they flail around for something, anything else to use as a club in place of the Bible.

And what they find is “benefits”.  One of the leading arguments for why same-sex civil marriage is needed is that along with marriage comes a whole slew of government and business supplied benefits.  Not just rights like hospital visitation and adoption, but things like joint filing of tax returns.  Many (but not all) of these can be acquired by filing assorted powers of attorney, wills, and other documents (or by working for gay-supportive companies), but often only at a cost of thousands of dollars and the possibility of having to fight for them when needed, problems that married couples simply don’t face.

Favorite Excuse #1: Gay couples want to ensure health benefits for their spouses, and since gays and lesbians are known health risks, this will be expensive.

Sidestepping the underlying jab that all gay men are presumed to be have (or will automatically get) AIDS, have you ever looked into the costs of having a child?  Not just birthing it, but all the health costs throughout the kid’s life?  Woo whee!  We could save a bundle on health expenses by not subsidizing population expansion.  Like that will happen.

Favorite Excuse #2: Married gay couples will be eligible for Social Security survivor benefits if one of them should die, and that would cause an added drain on our already strapped Social Security program.

If this is such a concern, then maybe we should just put a stake in the ground now and disallow that benefit for all future marriages.  Only ones performed before this date will be eligible.

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Updated on March 9, 2004

Updated on April 23, 2004

Favorite Excuse #3: From an April 21st letter to the editor in the Seattle Times, authored by Scott Wall:

Those who are seeking to legalize same-sex marriage are not taking into account all the ramifications.  For example, if a citizen marries a non-citizen, the non-citizen then becomes naturalized.  Do we want all sorts of men marrying and pretending to marry other men in order to sidestep the naturalization process?”

I want the same chance to have someone I love (or even just pretend to love) to sidestep the naturalization process as Mr. Wall gets, to marry (or pretend to marry) any random foreign woman.  What’s good for the gander should be good for the gay goose.  If this citizenship issue is such a major concern, Mr. Wall is surely making the appropriate appeals to get such naturalization policies changed, right?  Right?

Updated on December 22, 2010