Comments on: Ask not for whom the bell tolls

By: Acid Test » The right left

Acid Test » The right left — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:35:30 +0000

[...] Glenn Greenwald: quixote has been right all along. And also especially [...]

By: Acid Test » The good, the bad, and the ugly

Acid Test » The good, the bad, and the ugly — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 22:33:38 +0000

[...] someone who’s criticized Obama repeatedly, and repeatedly, how’s the evidence shaping up as he moves toward [...]

By: quixote

quixote — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:12:48 +0000

Being a single person and watching married people get benefits not available to me

Yup. It’s a point I make every chance I get: rights are for all or they’re not rights. They’re privileges.

That said, I can’t agree that gays are seeking a privilege. They’re seeking the same rights everyone else has. The fact that those rights need to be broadened to ALL family-level commitments is something that will happen as they become broader. Not narrower.

So I’d say make your otherwise excellent point by saying, “It’s about damn time we ALL got our rights. Including gays.”

By: Greenconsciousness

Greenconsciousness — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:17:45 +0000

You know what breaks my heart? Being a single person and watching married people get benefits not available to me because I do not want to live in a sexual relationship with another person. So I can’t share my employer health care benefits with my niece or get the marriage tax breaks (no Virginia, there is no marriage tax – because if there were the couple would file as single individuals). I cannot share my social security benefits with a friend or relative as a husband can with a wife. And so it goes on for many benefits. The same injustice occurs to childless individuals. This is based on a 6th century idea of what should be demanded from the individual for the good of the social order. It is not good policy or good for the environment to tie benefits to marital status or reproduction. The rewards should be going to those who do not reproduce and who live conservatively as far as demands on the environment. Benefits should be distributed equally between all regardless of marital status – that is prorated between unrelated individuals by contract. Sexual relationships should not confer secular benefits.

So it is not in the interest of single individuals to vote to extend marital benefits to homosexuals. The more of us in the same boat, the more people to vote for a really fair and just society for everyone – where benefits are available equally to married an unmarried people.

The saddest thing about the gay community is how much they wish to join the ranks of the privileged at the expense of all the rest of us.