Proposition Two Passes

Of the ten largest cities in the US, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio are the only three that provide no benefits at all for same-sex couples. Are we especially susceptible to fraud in the south? If New York and Los Angeles can handle it, I'm betting that Houston can.

 

Sorry rm95, my wife has benefits.

Luckily, even if I were a girl I'd still be privy to the benefits b/c the University of Utah is apparently aok w/ partnerships. Which actually begs a question for Clutch... does BYU get state funding (not that I'd know their stance on this issue one way or the other)??? I wonder if this is a statewide thing, or just an academic thing for the Utes. Hmmm.... it seems like it'd have to be statewide.

 

I'm with Pole on this one. Here's how I'd put it. I'm a conservative about lifestyle and a naturalist about orientation.

Here's what that means. The conservative position on lifestyle, in this case, is that joint health benefits and other joint benefits should be reserved for those who honor society's belief in lifetime monogamous commitment. The naturalist position on orientation is that the vast majority of people are locked into a sexual orientation well before they're even aware of it. I think it's genetic or determined in utero, but if not, it's determined within the first two or three years of life. So it makes no sense to punish people for being gay, any more than it does to punish them for being black. By the same token, there's no need to worry that homosexual relationships will "undermine" heterosexuality, since those of us who are heterosexual are no more capable of turning homosexual than vice versa.

If you accept both the conservative position on lifestyle and the naturalist position on orientation, the logical conclusion is that you should oppose joint benefits for unmarried couples regardless of orientation, and you should support marriage and marital rights for couples regardless of orientation.

 

I don't really know anything about the laws on this, but anyone should be allowed to get benefits as long as the premiums are being paid to these money hungry insurance companies. They simply need to eliminate the stupid "you have to be married" BS.

 

Actually there are quite a few ways to protect against fraud. For non-married couples of any orientation, you could require the same prerequisites for common-law marriage (x amount of time cohabitating, jointly owned property and savings accounts, children). And I agree that if every other city feels comfortable about allowing same-sex couples sharing benefits, so should Texas cities.

Still, I think the real solution to the problem would be to legalize gay marriages. It's in everyone's (employers, neighborhoods, politicians) best interest to legitimize stable relationships of any kind.

 

I realize many of us feel gay marriage should be legalized (I've been married for 6 years and I haven't had kids... do Falwell et al get to terminate my marriage?), it's unfortunate that many people hide the same sex issue behind the legitimacey of partner benefits. If Texas included a same-sex marriage referendum on the ballot would it have passed?

My mother and now step-father ran into problems back in the late '80s. My mother, neither fiscally wise nor emotionally wise, moved in with someone without making a nice legal agreement to protect her interests. Years later, when problems arose, she declared the super whammy "common-law" marriage to ensure her rights (they split up in '89 and got back together (married this time) in '92). It amuses me to no end that my mother, who walked all over traditionalistic marriage vows and church sanctioned pair bonding while enforcing her rights as a domestic partner, would have voted no on this referendum.

I'm under the impression that benefits are a bargaining chip when hiring employees. Is this not the case? It seems as if benefits should be a selective pressure on employee/employer interaction, based on the marketplace. Employers in a strong economy would not be able to secure the best talent if they didn't offer the best benefits. Therefore the city of Houston should suffer, when the economy rebounds, in procuring the best talent (insert civil servant joke here).

I'm also intrigued by another implication by this 'conservative position on lifestyle'. Should a divorcee be denied health care coverage after failing to honor our belief in lifetime monogamous commitment? How about infidels, or people that frequent titty bars? How about racists? Should serial monogammers that pair bond several times over a course of numerous marriages lose benefits on some sort of curve? My mother is in her second marriage, should she be allowed Dental?

 

I noticed lots of debate here. But no one answered Outlaw's question.

 

I guess outlaw will have to join the dark side and become straight like everyone else on this board.

 

The idea this would be a giant loophole just isn't valid. There are already loopholes. I know gay male couples who married other gay lesbian couples for medical coverage. There are strait couples that get married for the legal/financial arrangements but not to be together monogamously or because of love. Further, if you really wanted to get around the Houston proposition, instead of gays marrying I would suspect they could do something like "adopting" one another or something like that--some way to be a legal family member. I just don't by the idea this would be a huge new loophole fraught with abuse. It was shot down primarily for the message (additional legal and social acceptance of gays), not for its financial implications or potential for abuse. Pretty sad to me.

 

no one has answered outlaw's question, and no one has addressed mine, either.

I realize that I am probably in the minority as far as my personal beliefs concerning homosexuality, but I think the questions are valid.

desert scar wrote that the referendum was shot down for the "message" it would send. I'm assuming that the "message" in question would be, basically: we don't approve of the gay lifestyle.

so what is sad?

is it sad that there are people who don't approve of the gay lifestyle? is that what is sad?

if it's not sad for people to feel that way, then why should they want their tax money to go toward something they don't agree with?

I'm really not looking for an argument so much as I am just looking for someone to explain to me why it is "sad" for the city of Houston and its voting taxpayers to have voted this way.

as to outlaw's question, I don't live in houston, so I didn't vote on this referendum.

 

I live in Plano. They get mad when I try to vote in Houston elections.

 

hold your horses. let's not get ahead of ourselves and do one another a disservice by putting words in each others' mouths.

there's still a lot about this particular situation that I don't know. before I could tell you exactly what I would do in a particular situation, I would need to know some of those things. I do know enough to know that any reasoning I personally used in making up my mind on a vote would be based on both the moral and the fiscal factors involved.

here is my understanding of the situation:

there are tax-funded benefits which are available to legally-married couples. I am somewhat unclear as to whether they are available to non-married hetero couples, but it sounds like you're saying they are. if they are, then yes, it is certainly a double standard for those benefits not to be available to gay couples.

all of this is based on the assumption that I would vote a certain way on a topic I still need more information on. however, this also fails to hold up for another reason. to my knowledge, the voting public was not voting on whether non-married hetero couples should be eligible for these benefits. the public was voting on whether a new change should be made to an already-existing law. you are assuming that everyone who voted for gay couples to be denied these benefits is completely okay with non-married hetero couples getting these benefits.

a lot of different people do a lot of different things in a lot of different ways. even the homosexual lifestyle is trumpeted as being just a different way of doing things. so who cares if a bunch of other places do things differently than how the city of houston does? the state of texas has no state income tax. other states do. that's what makes america what it is. we don't all have to do things the same way. why should houston taxpayers be forced to support something they don't agree with just because that's how some other city has chosen to do things?

there may be a lot of things you don't agree with that are funded by your tax dollars, but if there was a referendum on the issue, does that mean that you would vote opposite of your conscience? these people aren't trying to go against the law by not paying for lawful taxes; they're trying to keep a new law from taking more money out of their pockets.

it sounds to me like this is something you care a great deal about. it sounds to me like the people who voted this referendum through also care a great deal about it.

the comments I've read here in this thread about how embarrassed some are to be a houstonian and how sad and backwards the majority is who voted this referendum through seem no less hateful and no less mean-spirited than you claim this vote to have been.

and it was those comments that I was reacting to, not the vote itself. I don't know enough about the particulars of houston's tax-funded benefits to know whether this vote was "fair" or not.

but I do know enough about people and hypocrisy to see that the comments in this thread don't seem entirely fair on their own merits.

just because you might be in the voting minority on a particular issue doesn't make the majority hateful and mean-spirited. I don't know about the vote, but all the comments seem to me hypocritical.

sort of equivalent to:

"they don't like the way I am, and that's wrong. therefore, my response is going to be to not like the way they are."

you seem awfully concerned about the way other place do things, seemingly using the assumpion "if everyone else does it this way, then houston is wrong not to."

however, by that same rationale, if most people are not homosexual, then people who are homosexual would be wrong for that as well.

 

People tend to be intolerant of intolerance. I don't find that particularly hypocritical.

I realize that your tone doesn't portray intolerance chievous. In fact, if memory serves (from our previous discussions), I've gotten the impression that you are at ease with your beliefs and your God. You don't come across as the proselythizing vegetarian of two weeks... anxious for self righteousness. I respect that.

However, IMO, tolerance is reserved for issues in which people's rights aren't actually being infracted upon. Should I tolerate a missionary being killed? Should I tolerate a black man or a gay man being killed? Should I tolerate someone sitting at the back of the bus because of their religious beliefs or their skin color? Should I tolerate my wife making less for doing the same job?

Our country is beautiful because we fight for alllll of these things.

Heterosexual people are the majority in our culture. I'm not sure how our belief systems can be changed without the dissident from time to time. Here, it makes no sense for me to say you say tomato I say tomato. These are not issues of taste. These issues matter.

 

I doubt anyone who voted against the Proposition would post on this board. The climate is extremely intolerant-- bordering on bigoted-- against the aspect of conservatism that opposes equating homosexuality with heterosexuality.

Three quick things before you hit that "POST REPLY" button:

1) I don't live in Houston, so I didn't vote on it.

2) I would not have voted for the Proposition.

3) I am the last person who would/should call for tolerant approaches to differing opinions. I am aware of the irony.

I'm also well aware of the intolerance directed towards anyone who disagrees with particular pet issues of the liberals on this board-- homosexuality probably being prime among these.

 

BK, are you drinking again? Sweet! When's that next Austin Rocketball meeting?

 

Warning..."tripe" alert.

We're intolerant of it because we view it the same as racism. I understand that many people don't, but just a few decades ago, many people didn't think racism was a bad thing either (that's not necessarily calling anyone a bigot either).

Man TheFreak, I hope Kagy can make it to the next meeting...he was great the one time he was there. Hell, I haven't had a bad time yet...I just hope Clutch will join us.

 

first of all, thanks Achebe for taking the time to read what I wrote and consider it on its merits. I don't have a need to get up in anybody's kool-aid about how they're choosing to live their lives. I just wanted to respond to the criticism being leveled on this big, bad voting majority in the evil redneck city of houston, texas [home of the 2-time world champion houston rockets aka clutch city]. but I digress. . .

I'm not sure I understand whether you're saying this is an issue of tolerance or not, and I'm not sure whether I agree.

it's one thing for a gay man or a black man or a christian woman to be dragged behind a truck. I don't think anyone's disputing whether that's an intolerant act or a wrong act.

but this referendum, to me, doesn't quite seem to be on the same level. to me, a tolerance issue is not the same as a "get your hands out of my wallet" issue.

to me, tolerating a lifestyle and personally helping to finance that lifestyle are not one and the same.

but that may not be what you're saying. it's late, and the high school where I teach lost a very important football game tonight, so my mind is not entirely right, politically or coherency-wise.

so are you saying that, in this case, peoples' rights are being infringed upon and that, therefore, this is not a tolerance issue? or are you saying that peoples' rights are not being infringed upon and that, therefore, this is a tolerance issue?

one thing that would be very helpful to everyone on both sides of this fence is if someone could just empirically prove that homosexuality either is or is not a genetically programmed pre-disposition.

rocketman95 wrote that one side of this argument views discrimination against homosexuals as being the same as racism, and if homosexuality is as unchangeable as the color of a person's skin, then I'd have to agree with rm95. however, I think it's hardly an apples to apples comparison, at least not in the year 2001. I allow for the possibility that science could one day show one to be just as unchangeable as the other, but right now, I don't believe that to be the reality.

and I think equating people who oppose homosexuality with racists is an argument that won't hold water until science comes in with that proof.

I think it is beyond question that, for some people at least, homosexuality is definitely a choice in a way that a person's ethnicity is never ever a matter of choice.

at any rate, for the most part, I feel like I've been able to ascertain that which I was originally attempting to; that being that the opinion that homosexuality is a "wrong" lifestyle is not generally respected as being a valid one by the vocal majority of posters here on the bulletin board.

that's okay. everyone is entitled to their opinion. if I'm in the minority on that issue, then I'm in the minority.

 

The flaw there is obviously telling them you live in Plano.

You have as much of a right to vote in Houston elections as I do!

Exercise that right.

 

cheivous minnifield,

What's sad is that people want to (unconstitutionally) keep a basic human right away from people because of their own beliefs. Ie. not allowing gays to be legally married.

No, this referendum was not about gay-marriages, but it could been a step in that direction. However, I do agree with those posters who say that unmarried partners should not receive the same benefits as married couples. Even though I disagree with the referendum, I still would've voted for it (or against it? whatever would've benefitted homosexuals) because it would've been a step in the right direction as far as giving homosexuals all the rights as a heterosexual citizen. Sometimes, you gotta go with the lesser of two evils. If gay marriages were allowed, I would not be for it, nor would I vote for it ("it" being benefits for non-married homo- & hetero- sexuals).

Unfortunately, I didn't vote. I actually feel like I've let down outlaw, my aunt, uncle, and cousins. I was at school until past 4:00pm, then I went straight home and studied for a test I had the next day, because I hadn't started studying for it yet.

The South was "forced" to support something they didn't agree with (ban on slavery), just because some other area (the North) chose to do things that way.

The fiscal argument is most often just a mask for the intolerance that many people feel. They can't just say, "I hate faggots", but they can moan and groan about how their tax dollars "shouldn't go towards something I don't approve of". That doesn't sound bigoted at all.....

Another argument to hide behind... science. People used to hide their racism behind a mask of "science". Blacks were "scientifically" inferior to whites.

It still doesn't matter what you or I "believe" about homosexuality. It boils down to our government supplying all its citizens with equal rights.

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BrianKagy,

What aspect would that be? The religious one? The scientific one? Some other one? <FONT SIZE="1">Serious inquiry here</FONT>

The truth is, regardless of whether you're conservative (like you and half of me) or liberal (like others, and about 35% of me, the rest is moderate or something) it doesn't matter. The Constitution gives the citizens of the United States certain rights. Being allowed to be legally married by the government which homosexuals support with their taxes should be one of those rights. I don't like the KKK. I don't think the government should allow the KKK to exist, but that's a personal opinion, and one that I could never want to pursue, because it would be hypocritical, because I know there are other people out there who dislike other organizations that I may or may not support, but still exist.