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    As a single person, I'm in the same boat as gay couples.
    Gay marriage supporters want to throw me overboard in
    order to join the favored group, forcing me to subsidize
    a slightly larger group of people. Why should I do
    anything but oppose that?

Assuming you are straight, your being out of the favored group is your choice. At any time, you are allowed to go out and find someone who you find sexually and romantically attractive and who finds you the same, and marry them, thus getting the benefits of the subsidies you listed.

Gays aren't given this option. If they want the subsidies, they have to marry someone they aren't attracted to.

Due to their preferences, gays find heterosexual marriage undesirable. Many straight people also find heterosexual marriage undesirable.

I fail to see what the difference is, apart perhaps from the magnitude of the desires. In either case, one must go against one's preferences to get a subsidy.

Magnitude of desires? Unless you're asexual, you're not going against your sexual preferences by marrying a heterosexual woman. I have no interest in getting married and neither does my girlfriend. She's opposed to it on philosophical grounds (related to Prop 8, actually), and I just think the whole thing is a ridiculous sham. But, I would never throw an oppressed minority under the bus just because I think marriage is a joke.

I humbly invite you to go seek out a handful of people who identify as gay or lesbian and ask them why they feel like they should be allowed the right to marry, regardless of their intention to actually do so.

It shouldn't be very hard in the NYC area to find a handful.

Unless you're asexual, you're not going against your sexual preferences by marrying a heterosexual woman.

Some people are in fact asexual, and prefer no sex. Others may prefer not to be married, even if they do wish to have sex with people of the opposite gender.

These are both preferences; what makes them less deserving of protection than a preference for gay marriage over straight marriage?

I understand that some people are asexual, which is why I mentioned that. Asexual people get a raw deal, there's no question about that.

I'm all for eliminating marriage subsidies, but let's take it one step at a time and recognize that there are literally millions of people in the United States who are being discriminated against by the state.

Saying that gay and lesbian individuals shouldn't be extended the rights enjoyed by the rest of the adult population of the United States because the entire institution is unfair misses the point.

How about if we take it one step at a time?

First, remove the discrimination against one of, if not the most discriminated upon groups, gay people.

Second, remove subsidized marriage.

Since the second is a much larger hill to climb, let's be decent human beings and support the first in the interim.

So would you be against gay marriage if marriage didn't have the side-effect of favoring married couples over singles (or so you claim)?

If yes, then you would have to amend your reasons for being against gay marriage.

If no, then first you're not really against gay marriage, just against marriage in general. But by opposing just gay marriage you're being selective which is discrimination i.e. you want to deny gay couples the same rights that are given to non-gays. Whether you like those rights or not is irrelevant - they're already given and accepted by society.

Without the subsidies, marriage would be nothing but a default contract. So in that case, I'd favor making the contract more general and including gays.

Incidentally, gay marriage activists also favor discrimination against the single. I didn't want to start a fight pitting one unfavored group against another, the gay marriage activists did. Now that the fight is on, I'm obviously going to support my team. But I'd much rather join with gays and fight for fairness rather than against additional discrimination.

gay marriage activists also favor

Ah. Have you talked to any outspoken pro-gay-marriage people, AKA activists? Like, all of the people in these threads who are telling you "yes, of course we're against marriage subsidies too, but pragmatically that has to be a future goal"?

You are not on a "team". You are making political statements (and probably actions, if you vote, canvass, or engage otherwise in the political process) that have real-life consequences for individuals with widely varying views.

"The Gay Marriage Activists" do not have weekly meetings that end with unanimous votes about how they hope the federal government supports tax cuts and special legal rights for married couples for ever and ever.

Maybe you just haven't quite explained it right yet, but I'm getting a strong fishy smell from what seems to be an argument that you'd "much rather join with gays and fight for fairness" -- except that you found out (somehow?) they all disagree with you on an issue that's, well, important but currently pretty irrelevant given widespread cultural norms.

Based on that argument I'm not quite sure how you can oppose gay marriage. It would appear you would have to rally against marriage subsidies, or at least marriage as a whole, etc. - because singling out a facet of the group (or a facet wanting to be part of that group) you have reason to dislike strikes me as discriminatory.

"It would appear you should rally against marriage subsidies,"

From my post: "Marriage fairness (i.e., no subsidies), I'll get behind. Gay marriage, no." In case that wasn't clear enough, I completely support eliminating all subsidies for marriage, and view gay marriage as a minor sideshow to the real issue. (See also my edit.)

I only single out gay marriage supporters because they are being jerks about the issue. Instead of pushing for fairness, they push for unfairness in their favor. Most people ignorantly accept the status quo, having never thought about the issue.

Gay marriage activists are not ignorant. They have thought things through, recognize that it is unfair, oppose the status quo, and still favor an unfair system. "I'm not against corruption, I just want the opportunity to participate in it." Why should I support them?

There might be gay marriage activists that are all about the subsidies, but this really isn't what the pro gay marriage movement is about. I understand that you see these subsidies as grossly unfair, but given that not everybody agrees, or even considers the subsidies to be the primary motivation for supporting gay marriage, calling supporters jerks as though they were all intentionally pushing for increased unfairness is kind of a dick move.

To make an analogy: if there was law against selling alcohol to asians, I could use your reasoning to support that. I would say:

"I'm against selling alcohol to asians, because people who drink cause harm to themselves and to the society, for which I, as a non drinker, have to pay with my taxes. Reforming alcohol laws - that I'll get behind. Selling alcohol to asians, no. Asians are not ignorant. They have thought things through, recognize that it's unfair and still favor an unfair system. Why should I support them?"

In that hypothetical scenario I would be missing the same big point that you're missing: equality is much more important. Equality is about treating everybody (be it a good or bad treatment) the same. The opposite is discrimination. Your dislike of marriage in general does not justify in any way discriminating against gays by denying them marriage.

In your analogy, the only discrimination is against asians, unless you mean to imply that there are subsidies for drinking (in which case, I'd favor ending both subsidies and anti-asian laws). In the circumstance under discussion, there is discrimination against both gay couples and single people, and I favor eliminating all discrimination rather than moving a small group from the unfavorable to the favorable group.

Suppose I reversed things. I want to allow single people to stop subsidizing married straight couples, but still require gays couples to pay subsidies. Would you favor that? Somehow, I doubt it.

In your analogy, the only discrimination is against asians

He's implying that non-drinkers are being financially discriminated against in a way analogous to single people regarding marriage financial benefits. Regardless if it's subsidies for drinking, as you mentioned, or otherwise the non-drinkers are being burdened.

What it comes down to is which is worse: A specific group being denied a right or a burden which that particular right imposes on the population that does not participate in it. Where you're running into trouble, in my opinion of course, is conflating these two issues together. Gay marriage and your problems with the financial aspects of marriage aren't an either/or thing, they're a completely different battle. Based on your comments I believe that the subsidy issue aside you really have no problems with gay marriage itself. So be happy that some people got more rights and gear yourself up for the separate subsidies battle.

Regardless, thanks for taking the time to single-handedly take up an unpopular opinion here.

Since you do not want to subsidize a favored class wouldn't it be more accurate to say you're /against marriage/?

Regarding the social security benefits...in actuality married people in the U.S. pay what's euphemistically called the Marriage Tax, because the rules as codified actually require married people to pay more than if they filed separately.

Regarding the rest of your arguments, I suppose they work assuming an extremely weak social contract. Or at least, in my opinion it would require a very weak one. It's hard question to test in relation to marriage since marriage is a legally sanctioned relationship in all countries, but i am most certainly not well read on this topic.

That's a good point, regarding SS. See: http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/issuepapers/ip2003-01.html

That's true for some couples, but not all by any means. It also completely ignores the marriage subsidies.

According to the CBO, 51% of married couples received a marriage bonus, and only 42% paid a marriage tax. In total, $32.9B was paid in marriage bonuses, and $28.8B was paid in marriage penalties. Data is from 1993, sorry, a quick google search couldn't find anything better.

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=7&type=0

Note that in 2004, Bush eliminated the marriage penalty for everyone besides the rich, so I expect the numbers are more skewed now.

In the case he's talking about, where you have a working spouse and a non-working spouse, the couple likely pays considerably less in taxes than would a single person with the same income.

For any given income, a couple filing jointly with that total income pays less than a single person with that income, because the joint tax tables are lower than the single tax tables at any given income level. The so-called marriage tax is simply an artifact of the fact that we have a progressive rate structure, so that if both spouses work, their combined income is in a higher marginal bracket, which in the case where both have full time jobs can be enough to overcome the tax break they get from filing jointly.

The problem with this argument is that I'd like to see data that single people subsidize married people. I suspect it is that wealthier married people subsidize everyone else.

But again, maybe you actually have the data that shows that single people subsidize married people.

One way to handle this is to separate out the economy into single vs married economies. Effectively different tax pools. Although I suspect the burden of single parent households on the single tax pool would be pretty weighty... especially if you get rid of child credits.

The problem with your argument is that you can join the "favored class" at any time so one could find that only gay singe people eventually subsidize all heterosexual marriages. So why not let gay people get married and if it gets to the point that the subsidies are so onerous then one would think single people - gay or straight - would be coming out of the woodwork to change that particular part of the law. You can't change everything at once and I think this is much more important from a non-religious ethical standpoint than any economic reason.

Gays can also join the favored class at any time. As far as I know, there is no law saying a gay man cannot marry a woman.

Gay's don't want to join the favored class and neither do I. The only difference between myself and a gay person is the strength of our desires and the existence of desirable substitutes.

True, gay people can enter into heterosexual marriages. As for the subsidy, I doubt that will change unless the affected group decides it has become too onerous and starts putting pressure on their representatives to remove it. Which means that more people getting married could shed more light on how unfair the system is for single people. It shouldn't have to be this way but unfortunately that seems to be how it goes.

That's a very cynical point of view based on seriously flawed premise i.e. that the biggest reason people get married is to obtain some financial benefit.

People mary because they are in love and they want to assert that loving relationship in the society and with government. What comes with that is a rich array of benefits and obligations. Most of the benefits (like the right to vist your spouse in the hospital) only have value if you actually care about your spouse.

So yes, technically gays can do fraudulent, non-gay marriage with a random person, but don't use it as an argument for discrimination by denying the marriage with people you actually want to marry (for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with the financial windfall you claim to exist).

Also, if there really is such a financial benefit to getting married, how come we don't have an epidemic of fake marriages? Your basic claim of financial benefit to marriage is not supported by observable facts.

> I'll draw an analogy to the civil rights [...]

Who are you in this analogy? The only thing I can come up with is not flattering.

Hey downvoters, it's an honest question. It makes him sound like "if I don't get mine, I'll keep you from getting yours", but I'd like to hear an alternate (more positive) interpretation.

If it's truly an honest question, the mapping for my analogy is { "white" : "straight married", "asian" : "gay", "black" : "single" }. Since I'm single, in the analogy I would be black.

(Admittedly, it's a confusing analogy if you are unfamiliar with US history.)