[ExI] Same Sex Marriage (was Re: Call To Libertarians)

[Kelly Anderson]

On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 8:50 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> The real problem isn't even the ten spouses, it's the 70 children.
> Especially now, when you are being required to keep those "children" on the
> insurance policy until they are aged 26.

When you talk about the cost of children, it hits me very close to
home. I have adopted 8 children out of the foster care system, so I
have a certain amount of familiarity with both the system and its
costs. I understand you are talking about polygamy, and there are
abusers of the system that are polygamous, but I'd bet that is a very
small part of the overall budget. There are something like 700,000
kids in foster care today. That costs a lot more than a few thousand
children of polygamists soaking the system. Since a lot of those
polygamists live in Utah, I can also tell you that they go after folks
like that pretty heavy.

>>...If you say you're OK with gay people being married, but have a problem
> with polygamous or polyandrous relationships, I think you've got some
> 'splainin ta do... -Kelly
>
> OK, here's my splanation:  What really costs money for the government and
> the employer is the children.  Same sex couples are less likely to breed.

Yet, they do manage it some of the time through partnerships with gay
couples of the opposite gender, and they also adopt where that is
allowed.

> If it's two men, they can only adopt, which actually removes a cost from the
> government.  As a kind of an affirmative action, I propose about ten years
> when only same-sex are allowed to marry.  Simultaneously I propose removal
> of all requirements for employers to offer health insurance, and removal of
> all legal restrictions on health insurance companies.  With those changes, a
> bunch of old problems go away.  Granted there are new ones, but we can deal.

I think the new problems likely outweigh the old ones in this matter.

> Government needs to be out of the marriage business.  That whole tax filing
> as married business needs to go too.  Once that tax arrangement is
> eliminated, family groups can assemble in any size or mix of gender they
> want, which to me is how it should be.  I recognize it really does introduce
> new problems, and yes I know we have a subculture which would force underage
> girls into marrying their elderly relatives.  But I think we can solve that.

Getting government out of the marriage business is an interesting
idea, but I think it would have some negative long term consequences.

My favorite libertarian solution to a social problem is a program that
I heard about a few years back. A group got together some money, went
into a drug infested area of an inner city neighborhood with a doctor
and offered a few hundred dollars to any young lady that wished to be
relieved of her reproductive capacity. To me this is a
win-win-win-small lose situation. If I had a million dollars, I think
this might be my favorite charity.

The problem is that drug babies cost the country a HUGE amount of
money. Many hundreds of thousands of dollars per child, over their
life time. The girls don't really want to get pregnant for the most
part. The beauty of this solution is that everyone is a volunteer in
the equation. We don't NEED government to solve our problems with
creative thinking like this.

-Kelly