by Mark Silva
Credit Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chairman, with nothing, if not creativity.
The GOP chairman today is offering a new way of looking at the debate over same-sex marriage:
It'll cost small businesses money.
With a number of states legalizing same-sex marriage - much of New England and also Iowa, so far - the debate over gay and lesbian unions that leaders of both parties have been content to leave to the states could escalate to the national stage if the movement for a marriage amendment is revived.
And Steele suggests that his party could forge a broader consensus on the question by recasting gay marriage as an issue that threatens the pocketbooks of small businesses forced to pay more for health care and other benefits for employees' partners.
(And, here we thought the problem with health insurance is that a lot of small businesses aren't providing it to anybody.)
Steele, in the Savannah, Ga., area today following an appearance at the NRA convention in Phoenix yesterday, where he warned that Democrats threaten the gun-owning right of Americans, said he had tried out this argument about gay marriage and small business budgets on an airline flight with a college student who had described herself as fiscally conservative, but socially liberal on issues such as gay marriage -- (did she ask for this conversation?)
"Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for," Steele told Georgia Republicans at their state convention. "So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money."
As Steele spoke of strategies for repositioning the party, he also poked some fun at his earlier pledge to give the GOP a "hip-hop makeover."
""You don't have to wear your pants cut down here or the big bling," the chairman advised the party's faithful in Georgia.
(Photos of RNC chairman Michael Steele at Georgia state Republican convention and convention-goer's hat by Richard Burkhart / Savannah Morning News, via AP. Wire services contributed to this report.)
Comments
Oh. My. Goodness. A loose translation from a German saying is: "Switch on your brain *first* *before* you put your mouth into operation!"
If you follow your argument to its conclusion, it's just as well an argument against marriage in general. And considering that straight marriage more often results in progeny, it cleary is more burdensome for businesses than gay marriage, right?
And/or why don't you and your fellow Republicans solve the problem from the other side and support a public health plan, which would shift the health care costs from employers altogether?
Posted by: Candia | May 16, 2009 5:29 PM
"The GOP chairman today is offering a new way of looking at the debate over same-sex marriage:
It'll cost small businesses money."
Mark, whatever the merits of Steele's statement, it is NOT a "new way of looking at the debate".
In fact, this point of view has been around for a while. It may be a new point of view at the Church of the Tribune Tower, but in the real world, outside the Swamp cloisters, it has been (among other venues) debated on MSNBC. You'd think a journalist would be aware of this......
Posted by: Bruce | May 16, 2009 6:46 PM
Yes, this is their old standby.
When all else fails.
Posted by: ornery | May 16, 2009 6:48 PM
* * * * *
Posted by: Candia | May 16, 2009 5:29 PM
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You’re sort-of right. It’s not an argument against marriage as much as it is an argument against state-sanctioned marriage.
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Actually, I think it’s a good argument. Maybe the states should get out of marriage altogether, and leave it to private individuals to define marriage and interpersonal relationships by contract and social convention. Why should those rights we deem “fundamental,” like marriage and family, be left to state regulation anyway? How can you call it a right if it requires a license? And, why should the state hand out money to people just because of their interpersonal relationships? Whatever happened to rugged individualism?
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BTW - I take issue with your claim that hetero marriage results in a greater burden to the state. It’s true that gay couples cannot procreate (without some outside assistance, at least), but they can and do adopt children. The same policy decisions that allow for the state to spend money on hetero couples with children would seem to compel the same expenditures for gay couples with adopted children. After all, most (if not all states) view the relationship of a parent to an adopted child to be equal to that of a non-adopted child in all respects.
Posted by: John W. | May 16, 2009 7:12 PM
Mark, while you're busy dissing Michael Steele over gay marriage, can you please tell us in which state that gay marriage has been put to the ballot that it has passed? Since you love polls so much, well only when they help push the spin you want to spin anyway, please show us which poll says Americans are in favor of gay marriage. How about your hoped-for adopted father, President Obama? Seems to me he says he is against gay marriage. In fact, it seems the Messiah hasn't made it a priority of his badministration.
Just do a little research, Mark, and you might find that MOST Americans agree with Michael Steele on this issue. I dare ya!
Posted by: John D | May 16, 2009 9:17 PM
This makes it clear that there are economic benefits to being in a heterosexual marriage that people don't get where their same-sex partnership isn't legally recognized.
Why aren't the Republicans ashamed of themselves for framing the issue in terms of money rather than in terms equality under the law? They're implicitly acknowledging that they've lost the argument when it's a matter of fairness.
Posted by: klm | May 16, 2009 10:58 PM
The argument made would've been equally as supported and forceful 42 years ago, when the question was whether white folks should be allowed to marry black folks. Of course, interracial marriage was legal in some states... but not in the state where Mr. Steele was speaking.
As a practical argument... even if we accept the viewpoint, the "damage" being done is being done by those gay folks (a small percentage of the populace) in committed relationships (I won't try to call which fraction of the gay populace that is, but certainly not 100%) where one but not both are employed in a place which offers health benefits (again, a fraction), and where that employer offers family benefits but not partner benefits (probably a sizable fraction, but again, a fraction). So when you slip from arguing "this will destroy marriage" to "this will increase business health costs by a fraction of a percent -- at least, if we ignore any possible health advantages in encouraging relationship stability among homosexuals" it doesn't really look like you're winning.
Posted by: Nat G. | May 17, 2009 1:59 AM
This is the oldest argument ever. Once we used to force women to give up their jobs when they got married, or when they got pregnant, because it was 'too expensive' for business. Maybe the answer is for business to only employ single people if they don't like shouldering their proper responsibilities to society in general.
Posted by: Doug | May 17, 2009 5:28 PM