’)Ok Michael Steele, the jig is up. You’re doing this for me, right?
Steele said that was just an example of how the party can retool its message to appeal to young voters and minorities without sacrificing core conservative principles. Steele said he used the argument weeks ago while chatting on a flight with a college student who described herself as fiscally conservative but socially liberal on issues like gay marriage.“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 Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”
Who knew that when the Republican party was looking for a party chairman they would pick the one guy that actually lives up to the mythology around affirmative action?
And a study in Massachusetts says gay marriage would actually have a pretty positive economic effect.
A study conducted for the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development predicts that an economic boomlet in hotel bookings, banquets, and wedding cakes would result from repealing a 1913 state law that prevents gay and lesbian couples from most other states from marrying in Massachusetts.
Consider these numbers: An estimated 32,200 same-sex couples from elsewhere would travel to the state to get married over the next three years. That would pump $111 million into the economy and yield another $5 million in marriage license fees and sales and occupancy taxes.
Michael Steele would make a good weatherman. He’s got dashing good smile, a soothing voice and is almost always wrong.
1) Oliver, I don’t like Steele either but must you call him a j*g?
2) The biggest losers of same-sex marriage under law will be lawyers who now make a lot of money patching over legalities to cover for this obvious inequity.
3) Some same-sex couples have kids, but most don’t. Most are two-income households. Accordingly, it could as easily be that the lower-earning spouse will ride on the higher-earning spouse’s policy, saving money for the other employer in the first place. Since two single policies usually cost more than one joint policy, employers as a class save on net. This effect probably applies in many other benefits categories as well.
This is just incredibly stupid. If that same imaginary college student didn’t turn to him and say “Isn’t that the same situation when one of your straight employees gets married?” then they should be kicked out of whichever imaginary college Steele claimed they attended.
SG beat me to it.
Michael Steele: Against all marriage!
Another repub that wants gays to be 3/5ths of a person
Steele’s is correct if he means that denying gays their civil liberties could save some businesses money. But they could save more by denying black people the right to marry too, couldn’t they? It’s exactly the same argument, just with a different groups being discriminated against.
Hey, here’s another argument in the same vein: slavery should never have been abolished. Look how much it now costs to employ black people and actually pay them. If saving money is a good enough reason to deny gays their rights, why not blacks too?
Any comment, Michael?
Bruce, you’re kidding about “the jig is up,” right?
So the health of the small business community depends on maintaining the population of unmarried gays?
If for example, Adam marries Steve, this would increase the costs on small business. Of course if Adam straightened out and married Eve, that would also increase the cost to small business. The best hope for small business is that Adam remains unmarried, and the best hope for that is for Adam to be gay and not be allowed to marry Steve.
So when do we see the Chamber of Commerce begin its gay recruitment drive.
Bruce: 2) The biggest losers of same-sex marriage under law will be lawyers who now make a lot of money patching over legalities to cover for this obvious inequity.
Not seeing any problem there.
Bruce, OW didn’t call Steele a “jig,” but I WILL. He needs to KMA, STFU, FOAD, and all them other acronyms. Fuckin’ yesterday.
Jr,
Just like Obama! He and Steele have the exact same position
Longer SaveFarris: “I have gone a whole five minutes without telling random people on the internet how stupid I am… I know! I’ll claim that the democratically elected leader of the free world and the leader of a powerless regional southern party are in the exact same position!”
Time is seriously running out on Obama’s window to capitalize on the political benefits of overturning DADT. It’s dang near too late.
Palin / Steele 2012! The path to goper resurgence!
Rod,
You said exactly what I was thinking.
Speaking as a semi-professional musician – I can attest first hand to the results of that study.
The “wedding industry” is one that is really hurting right now. I USED to do a lot of weddings (in the early part of the decade I worked literally every Saturday night during the summer playing weddings). As a trombone player – I’m the first to get cut out of the horn section when the economy gets band.
The wedding band that kept me so busy 7-8 years ago completely eliminated the trombone. Last summer I played MAYBE a half-dozen (probably less) weddings…
And another thing to consider. There are numerous studies show that married people are healthier and live longer. Steele’s thesis is based entirely on the increase of employer health insurance premiums. I wouldn’t be surprised if you look at overall LONG-TERM net costs of funding health insurance – I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers showed increasing the married population actually decreaed employers’ (large and small businesses alike) health care expenses.
Ever heard that credo where if someone says, “It’s for the children,” don’t believe it? I’m starting to wonder the same thing about small business
And, I’m so glad I got married before the gay marriage zeitgheist hit. Our little breeder marriage could in no way compete with the opulence of the marriage of 2 gay men. (I’d hate to think about that bachelor party too)
sg made my point that adding a straight spouse to an insurance policy adds to an employer’s cost as well.
Keith makes the additional point that the net cost to business of insuring Adam and Steve on a family policy will be less than their 2 single policies.
However, if 2 heteros marry, they will be more likely to increase business’ risk by breeding dependents.
To me, this argument is similar to the argument that gay marriage is wrong because it doesn’t have the option of children issuing from it. I take this one (which Steele is not making, but no doubt he would) personally. My wife and I, both 50-somethings, also married without the possibility of procreation. So, tell me to my face that our marriage is invalid, too.
Oliver: “Who knew that when the Republican party was looking for a party chairman they would pick the one guy that actually lives up to the mythology around affirmative action?”
Hey now, you’re being really unfair to Clarence Thomas.
Parthenon: “Michael Steele: Against all marriage!”
Nah, not Steele; that would be a logically consistent position!
Just like Obama! He and Steele have the exact same position
Really? Obama’s stated that gay marriage is bad for small business?
This just goes to show how utterly weak the arguments against gay marriage are, once you remove religion.
“Who knew that when the Republican party was looking for a party chairman they would pick the one guy that actually lives up to the mythology around affirmative action?”
Lol. As a white girl, I don’t even want to touch that, but at the same time, I can’t help but notice that Steele was chosen by the RNC and is shut down every time he says anything remotely intelligent about changing the direction of the Party. I didn’t think I’d ever utter these words, but I think they chose him because he’s black. Ouch.
They don’t get any stronger with religion added back in…just stupider and even more cosmologically mythological.
The biggest losers of same-sex marriage under law will be lawyers who now make a lot of money patching over legalities to cover for this obvious inequity.
Nonsense. They can make up the lost revenue doing gay divorces.