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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

"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?

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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.

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