Marital Status of Prius Owners

This thread was good reading, has gotten quite long. I have a couple of comments. First off, citing the dictionary definition of marriage is not a valid reason to not allow gay marriage...the language itself evolves and changes with social change, dictionary definitions change. That marriage is a contract between two people that love each other enough to commit to a life together is good enough for me. Same-sex marriage fits quite nicely in there.

The other thing is that my wife and I lived together for 7 years before getting married, and have now been married going on 22 years. The first 7 years of living together weren't a test marriage, we had already reached the level of commitment of marriage long before we decided to get married. It was when we decided to have children (now 18 and 15 year-old daughters) that we decided it was time to have a legal marriage. That actually simplified things for us, being legal and all.

We've been through a lot together, and our life together has been a rich one (although we aren't).

-Roger

 

I guess we can all agree to disagree on this issue. I'm not going to say anything further at this point other than I know a lot of people agree with me on the gay marriage issue. Even the pastor of the American Baptist church that I attend.

Check out our website and maybe you'll understand more
http://www.geocities.com/hsemerson/wedding.html

We've had nothing but postive comments from friends and coworkers. Not all family members haven't necessarily been ecstatic, but they accept and love us. As time goes on, they've gotten used to the idea. Their marriages haven't become anything less as a result of our marriage.

Andy

 

Where I work (an airline), we are able to fly for a very nominal fee on a space available basis. The IRS regulates the extent to which an airline can grant this benefit to its employees. The result of this regulation is that the employee, spouse, dependent children, and employee's parents get this benefit.

The reason I bring this up is that in the case of a same-sex couple, the employee gets the benefit, but his/her partner cannot, due to IRS regulation. My employer in fact did try to include same sex couples and was promptly visited by the IRS!

Property rights in Minnesota (and I believe most other states), are joint owned by married couples, if I die before my wife, the house, car, etc. become my wife's. Not the case with same sex couples.

This is discrimination plain and simple!

My solution would be this. Marrage is no longer a government institution, all marrages become civel-unions. Marrage will be an institution left to churches, and each church can deal on its own weather to count same sex unions as marrage. But for all legal rights, we are all treated the same

Lets hear what others think about this...

 

Fine....whatever,...I was just trying to put some fun back into the thread. Way to be a buzzkill.

 

Here's something I read in my 1040 instructions. "For federal tax purposes a marriage means only a legal union between a man and woman as husband and wife". Obviously, even the IRS acknowledges that other people have other interpretations/defintions of marriage.

Historically, marriage was defined as relationship between a male, a female and their families whose primary purpose was to raise offspring.

Today many people use the word to describe a committed, loving relationship with or without children.


Andy

 

Probably best to ignore daronspicher on this issue. I think he's looking for a flame by posting that nonsense. There's no point in wasting your keystrokes on it.

Andy

 

I think the main problem with legalizing marriage for people that WANT to marry their pets is that animals don't have legal standing and can't sign a marriage contract.

Andy

 

The whole common law as opposed to a marriage certificate with or without a cermony confuses me. I don't see why 2 people living together but not going through with the business end of things should have the same status.

My nephew and his partner had a civil union and have been together for 8+ years. their ceremony was great.

My daughter would not have chosen marriage but when her SO got picked for a civilian job in Italy they "had to" get married. We went to the Courthouse and then to Extrodinary Desserts downtown as a family. It was a blast!! She wore a beautiful vintage cocktail dress and it was no stress.

I think individuals have their own reasons for getting married (or not)and I hope that someday that choice will be open to all.

 

Had to add this "Wedding" Picture to the rest!

And to Bill Merchant, you can do alot with just a pint of acid....

 

Actually, this is one thing that gay couples gay easily fix. You get the deed titled as as "joint tenants with rights of survivorship," meaning that when one of you dies, the other automatically inherits the whole house.

You can do this on investments, bank accounts, and cars as well.

As for the other property where you can't do this, you better have a will.

Interestly, our insurance company State Farm asked when I legally changed my last name to my partner's last name when we were married how our cars were titled. They said if both of us were on the cars they could give us the multi-car discount. This is saving us over $200 per year. I wish they had asked sooner.

Andy

 

Actually, I think the company can give same-sex benefits but the partner receiving the benefit will have to pay taxes on the $ value of the benefit. Clearly, an injustice!

Andy

 

I guess the whole beer oil thing was not processed, only rejected.

This crowd is primarily liberal and pro homosexual as is shown in this thread so I don't think anyone here would ever process or think through an opposing viewpoint. That's expected, no surprise.

The point was to show that the gay agenda is to take something sacred to many (hetro marriage) and kill it. Add something to it that is distastful to those who hold marriage dear. Which in fact then ruins it for those who hold it dear.

The gay agenda is so caught up in 'what they dont have' that they do not stop to consider what they are trying to take from those who hold it dear.

So, all I'm saying is get all the rights you think you need, just call it something else and leave marriage alone. Don't take away from millions to have some pittly victory for yourself.

Yes, marriage is LESS once you call it equal to something that is distasteful to most who hold it highly. To those who love their wife, it would be offensive to say that she is a woman, prostitutes are woman, so I guess they are all equal in every way. No.. it would take away from your wife to do that. She's worth protecting so them's fightin words. Or, shall someone stand up and argue that we must be inclusive and the prostitute would have her feelings hurt if we can't lump her lifestyle in with your wife's lifestyle and call everyone equal, so suck it up buddy and make the prostitute feel good about herself at the expense of your wife. Not me...

Perhaps the gay agenda can get support from a pile of you who lived together, did whatever together, divorced a few times, somehow stained marriage in a heterosexual relationship or ten prior to signing some paperwork. Doesn't make either one of ya right.

Have your rights, do your thing, just don't pretend to be in the same basket with Marriage. Get your own basket. Everything is life doesn't have to all be in one basket. You're different in your thinking than us.. we had marriage first, get your own word for whatever it is that you're doing...

 

Typical...tantrums like "I had it first" are only justified in the mind of a 2 year old. You'll have no further consideration from me.

Jason E.

 

I've always wondered what this mysterious "gay agenda" thing is? I guess I never received my copy when I was converted.

BTW, I'm a Libertarian, not a Liberal. I believe in freedom and it's more than I can say for a lot so-called conservatives with their own agendas.

Andy

 

It is wonderful that you bring up this line of argument, because it proves a fascinating point: Prostitutes, adulterers, child molesters, murderers and even terrorists all have the right to marry. Just not gay people. Even people convicted of murdering their own children can still get married, while in prison - no less, to someone on the outside, and receive all the rights and privileges accorded by the government. Just not gay people.

You think gay people are icky. That's fine. Just not a good reason to exclude us and our children (don't forget the children, right?) and our families from protection. Just because you think it's icky.

In your comment you mentioned a "gay agenda". Please forward me a copy of this agenda, as I was unable to attend the last secret meeting. (Held every 2nd Thursday in the balcony at Whole Foods).

- Bob R.

 

Bob, at the last meeting I heard that National added an amendment to the gay agenda. I think most Prius owners would agree with this part of our agenda.

Amendment 113.12

To convert every American to own at least 1 hybrid car by the year 2010.

An intersting fact is that 51 per cent of GLBTs consider it worth paying the extra for then hybrid technology, compared with just 34 per cent of the non-GLBT population.

Toyota is considering targeting the GLBT market with an online ad campaign declaring: "Prius: brings out the bisexual in you"or "Test drive the Prius - the car that swings both ways".

In case you're sceptical about the results of this survey, here's reassurance:

The AutoGLBT Study was conducted online in the United States by Harris Interactive between July 21 and August 1, 2005 among 2,818 self-identified gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender adults (aged 18 and over) and 2,121 heterosexual adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age by gender, education, race/ethnicity, region and income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.


Andy