Same-sex Marriage.

[_krose]

Here's a shout-out to Krose for humorously pointing out several spelling errors. Please feel free to note any others. It will be greatly appreciated.

I'm sorry if that hurt your feelings. Those two were just too amusing to pass up.

Blame the shortcomings of spell-checking software, which generally fails to identify misused words as long as they are spelled correctly, thus exposing a lexically challenged writer.

[_krose]

From the blog:

Blurs Critical Male/Female Distinction -Through liberal promotion of gay marriage and other cultural causes, the value of women and mothers has been diminished.

Could someone please explain how the value of women and mothers is diminished, when many (if not most) of the same-sex couples with children consist of two women? Male-oriented homophobia, apparently.

That said, it's interesting to me that the arguments against marriage equality always turn out to be arguments against gay relationships in general. Any pair of lesbians or gay men can already live together and raise children without the benefit of state-sanctioned marriage. The legal label doesn't affect that at all.

What it boils down to is no more than a fight for the exclusive ownership of the word "marriage." And that's just plain silly.

[_Bazooka]

Wade, how do you rationalise the Church's vocal stance on wanting freedom to practice religion "how, where and what" one likes.
With the Church's efforts to impose it's beliefs about same sex marriage on people who aren't members?

[_wenglund]

Let's follow this statement to its logical conclusion. From the perspective with which you write your blog, unintended negative consequences are things that hurt the liberal agenda. If you oppose liberalism, then you should be in favor of things that hurt the liberal agenda. Thus the unintended negative consequences you describe are the very things Conservatives support.

First, I don't so much view myself as opposed to liberalism as I am for conservationism. In other words, I don't define myself by what I am opposed to, but by what I stand for.

Second, my interest isn't in favoring what may harm the liberal agenda, but rather in preventing future harm to liberals and conservatives due to the liberal agenda.

Third, as previously explained, while I am a conservative author, I am writing to liberals and speaking to their liberal perspective and what they may view as negative.

I hope this helps.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_wenglund]

meanwhile in reality...

Gallup 7/29/2013:
Position on Making Same-Sex Marriages Legal in All 50 States:
Liberals ........... 77% for, 19% against
Conservatives .... 67% against, 30% for

Washington Post/ABC 7/3/2013:
Overall, do you approve or disapprove of the U.S. Supreme Court’'s decision providing legally married same-sex couples with the same federal benefits given to other married couples?
Liberals ........... 79% approve, 20% disapprove
Conservatives .... 61% disapprove, 38% approve

which of these groups would you say is more "divided", Wade?

Good point.

However, the point I was making wasn't so much that there were differing opinions within the same political house (differences are bound to exist on a broad range of issues, particularly the "bigger the tent" of the political party), but rather the degree of animosity and the extent to which those differences may be expressed. Last I checked, Conservatives who disapprove of same-sex marriage don't have plans to boycott, nor have they organized protest marches against, those conservatives that approve.

In short, differences of opinions in-house are an expected instead of unexpected consequence (negative or otherwise), whereas high levels of hostility are not.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_wenglund]

within this sandcastle of crap Wade has lovingly crafted, we find this remarkable (unsupported) claim...

[...] compassion towards homosexuals, particularly with the legalization of same-sex marriage, has resulted in an increase [...] in the rate of homosexual suicides

just out of curiousity (since you don't cite any references), where did you collect this particular turd, Wade?

The documentation was provided in the preceding paragraph.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_wenglund]

Wade, I'm surprised that you haven't been called out yet for some of your questionable math skills and/or your logical reasoning with regard to the consequence of "costly gov expansion". You state "where benefits of same-sex marriage to gay couples are said to be as high as $500,000.00 over their lifetime"

Are you implying that the cost to the government is that much for each SSM couple?

Here is what I explicitly indicated in my article: "using the figures reported by gay advocates...". So, the implication isn't mine, but that of the gay advocates I cited.

Digging into your sources, we read "In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs."

(Are you rounding $467k up to $500k?)

No. That is the work of the Williams Institute, a gay-advocacy think tank I cited.

Furthermore, the source article is referring to the out of pocket costs to a SSM couple, including such things as artificial insemination fees ($40k), moving fees ($20k) to a ssm friendly state, tax preparation fees ($12k), lower IRA savings opportunities ($48k-$112k), etc. These are hardly costs that would be passed onto the government in a SSM situation.

Good find. It clearly draws into question the credibility of the gay-advocacy source whose figures I employed.

To be clear, the reason I used the figures from gay advocates wasn't because I felt they were accurate, but because I didn't want the main point of my piece to become obscured by tangential disputes over numbers. I presumed that my pro-SSM audience wouldn't get hung up on figures provided by their own side, and even if someone did (as with you), it would reflect poorly on the gay advocate sources rather than on me and my article.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_wenglund]

I'm sorry if that hurt your feelings.

Not in the least. It gave me as hearty a chuckle as I suppose was the case for others.

Blame the shortcomings of spell-checking software, which generally fails to identify misused words as long as they are spelled correctly, thus exposing a lexically challenged writer.

The blame is all mine and that of my mild learning disability. I am very grateful for spell-checking because my writing would be so much worse (or laughable).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Kyle Reese]

Wade, I'm surprised that you haven't been called out yet for some of your questionable math skills and/or your logical reasoning with regard to the consequence of "costly gov expansion". You state "where benefits of same-sex marriage to gay couples are said to be as high as $500,000.00 over their lifetime"

Are you implying that the cost to the government is that much for each SSM couple?

Here is what I explicitly indicated in my article: "using the figures reported by gay advocates...". So, the implication isn't mine, but that of the gay advocates I cited.

Digging into your sources, we read "In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs."

(Are you rounding $467k up to $500k?)

Yet, using the figures reported by gay advocates, where benefits of same-sex marriage to gay couples are said to be as high as $500,000.00 over their lifetime (see HERE and HERE), and assuming optimistically that all 646,000 gay households (see HERE) become legally married, the total cost would be $323 trillion dollars, or nearly 100 times the 2013 federal budget (see HERE)


No. That is the work of the Williams Institute, a gay-advocacy think tank I cited.

Furthermore, the source article is referring to the out of pocket costs to a SSM couple, including such things as artificial insemination fees ($40k), moving fees ($20k) to a ssm friendly state, tax preparation fees ($12k), lower IRA savings opportunities ($48k-$112k), etc. These are hardly costs that would be passed onto the government in a SSM situation.

Good find. It clearly draws into question the credibility of the gay-advocacy source whose figures I employed.

To be clear, the reason I used the figures from gay advocates wasn't because I felt they were accurate, but because I didn't want the main point of my piece to become obscured by tangential disputes over numbers. I presumed that my pro-SSM audience wouldn't get hung up on figures provided by their own side, and even if someone did (as with you), it would reflect poorly on the gay advocate sources rather than on me and my article.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Also, let's clarify - the Williams Institute is making a claim only in regard to the financial well being of SSM couples. They are not implying that these costs would be incurred by the government.

"The first point worth noting is that marriage can make a big difference for same-sex couples’ financial well-being. A few years ago, two New York Times reporters calculated that even ordinary same-sex couples could lose as much as $500,000 over a lifetime because they can’t marry and therefore can’t get employers’ spousal health insurance, among other disadvantages."

So the figures that they are relying upon, from the New York Times, may very well support their argument. But their claims are not the same as your claims.

[_Jaybear]

The documentation was provided in the preceding paragraph.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Could you please explain the causal connection between gay marriage and the rate of homosexual suicide.
I just don't see a connection.

While I can certainly see that middle aged deeply closeted self loathing homosexuals who have repressed their sexuality for decades in obedience to the Lord's commandments might be depressed and envious of the gains and social acceptance made by gays that are out and proud, and might wish to end their miserable loveless existence, that wouldn't show up as a homosexual suicide.

Also, why is it, with such compelling evidence, the proponents of Prop 8 didn't call you to the stand.
Instead they introduced some idiots presenting social data who got their asses handed to them by Boise and Olsen on cross examination.