Domestic Partners

"Twisted logic", eh? This serious accusation by the Record – an expert on twisted logic – compels me to reexamine my position on Gay Marriage Lite. Have I erred in declining to offer taxpayer money to subsidize "domestic partnerships"?

From Mr. Snowflack's comments, one might conclude that the "domestic partnership" bill involved only "common sense" provisions, such as the right to visit sick lovers, or make medical decisions on their behalf.

Balderdash. The anecdotal evidence – of gays being denied the right to see their dying lovers – dates from my high school years. No hospital would even consider preventing any friend, let alone a lover, from visiting a dying patient.

But, were they so inclined, this proposal does precisely nothing more than was already available under existing law. Readily available medical powers of attorney suffice to preclude such situations.

The taxpayer subsidies are very real. Entitling one's "partner" to medical, pension, or survivors benefits will not come cheap. The right to declare a "partner" as a dependent or to pass property free of the inheritance tax everyone else pays will reduce revenues.

What does society receive in return?

This is NOT a civil rights matter. The state offers married couples special rights because the stable relationship between a man and a woman constitutes the optimal setting for bearing and rearing kids. Society provides benefits not in recognition of the parties' mutual affection; no such question appears on the marriage license application. Rather, the creation of such a family unit presumptively benefits children, a goal worthy of state subsidy.

The law presumes that parties to a marriage will bear children. Hence, the ban on marrying close relatives. Even an infertile man cannot marry his 60 year-old post-menopausal sister, not because society frowns on the relationship per se, but because it presumes that children will result, with dire consequences. Gays, self evidently, cannot produce children between them; hence, their relationship is of no official consequence, NOT necessarily because it's evil or immoral, but because it's irrelevant.

It's simply business; children are best served when reared by their biological parents. Providing subsidies and incentives to create and preserve this optimal setting for the rearing of society's next generation offers a substantial return on society's investment. Obviously, that return is utterly absent from a gay coupling.

Not all relationships are created equal. Comparing relationships which can presumptively produce kids to those which self-evidently cannot makes no sense.

Mr. Snowflack snarkily opines that this analysis requires the conclusion that "... so called (sic) straight couples who (sic) do not have children do not deserve marriage benefits either." Not (necessarily) so. The law presumes that a marriage will produce children; it accords benefits on the basis of that presumption. Whether such union actually produces kids, it is the best environment therefor. That suffices.

Rising to the bait, would a policy which accorded benefits only to parents be justifiable? Of course. The state has absolutely no interest in keeping couples together for their own sake; it's not in the business of subsidizing love. If the state provided marriage-like benefits to couples only when they produced children, such would constitute a perfectly rational policy.

Marriage creates the (theoretically) stable union necessary for children to thrive BEFORE they arrive on the scene. Society recognizes that children are best served by such stable, loving, legally binding relationships between their parents, which endure for life. No such considerations militate in favor of recognition of any other relationship.

The confines of a short article preclude a full treatise on the benefits of marriage, but suffice it to say that, from the state's perspective, those benefits inure not so much to the participants themselves, but to the kids society presumes they will bear. Treating gay couples the same as "so-called straight" couples constitutes a gross perversion of the whole purpose of the undertaking. It transforms benefits intended to create child-friendly environments into merely another opportunity for individuals to feed at the public trough.

That is not what marriage, from society's perspective, is all about.

Permit me a very simple question: without resort to what other folks receive, how can one defend the domestic partnership bill on its own merits? If a gay couple presents itself for tax benefits, insurance benefits, pension benefits, or the like, all of which cost the public a fortune, why should society accede? What does society receive from that couple in return for the subsidy?

People should be free to order their lives as they see fit, free from governmental interference. But they are not entitled to official recognition of, and taxpayer subsidy for, their lifestyle choices, unless they give something back. While gay relationships might be extraordinarily satisfying to the participants, from the public's perspective, they're irrelevant. This insults the participants not at all, nor slights the depth of their commitment to each other. It simply recognizes the obvious: couples which presumptively can produce children differ from those which self evidently cannot.

This elected representative, and defender of the public fisc, demands from people seeking money at taxpayer expense that they demonstrate a damn good reason therefor. Married couples offer good reasons for the benefits they receive; "domestic partners" do not. It's not a matter of "fairness"; it's a matter of the state getting a good return on its investment. Traditional marriage offers such a return; no other relationship, however close and loving, offers comparable benefits. Hence, simple logic – which escapes you esteemed editors – demands that they not be treated alike.