[Vision2020] Domenstic Benefits?

[Phil Nisbet]

There was a spirited discussion on spreading benefits about for gays and 
lesbians and transgenders, etc.  Though it has dried up, I was wondering,

Why is there a benefit for people simple because they happen to be sharing 
the same bedroom?

Don't get it wrong, I benefited from it back while I was married and before 
I became a single dad, but now I am happily not married and intend to spend 
the rest of my life in happy bachleorhood.

So I guess I am wondering why it is that simply because two people make a 
choice to sleep together and live together in some sort of bonded 
relationship, those of us who have been there and done that and got the 
Tshirt, but are not to particularly wanting to do it again any time soon, 
are expected to pay higher taxes and spring for higher bills for insurance 
and the rest, simply because somebody else is having a wonderful time of 
matrimonial bliss.

As long as we as a society chose to favor couples with tax breaks and 
benefits, I do not see how all types of relationship are not granted special 
privileges equally.

Those who suggest that marriage is one man and one woman and deserve 
benefits are doing so based on the premise that this is about kids, the 
having and raising of them being something that society needs to assist.  
But there are one heck of a lot of single parents, people who do not have 
two people raising children or two paychecks to cover the costs who are just 
as deserving of assistance, but as singles are expected to shoulder the 
burden for those who are not single.  And of course, lesbian and gay couples 
can have households with kids as well.  Then you have childless couples, the 
Double Income No Kids (DINKs), who never are going to have kids.

So if taking care of children is the key, why not attach the benefit to the 
kids and not to the couples?  That means that DINKs do not get a benefit 
simply because they are sleeping together, but that struggling single 
parents see the same benefit as two parent households.

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