May 3, 2008

Marriage & Family

Capricious Iniquity!

Justin Katz

I expect it won't be long until courts begin to realize that this capricious obstinacy has no basis in rational adjudication:

Two elderly sisters who live together have lost their final appeal in a discrimination case that claimed they were victims of discrimination under Britain's civil partner law.

Joyce Burden, 90, and her 82-year-old sister Sybil (pictured) claimed that the partner law should have included any two people living in an interdependent relationship.

By not being included in the law they claim they could lose the their family home if either of them dies because the other could not afford to keep the home and pay Britain's death duty tax.

The women fought their case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. ...

The civil partnership law was passed in 2004. It grants same-sex couple of all of the rights and obligations of marriage except the name.

When the case began in 2006, Joyce Burden said that "If we were lesbians we would have all the rights in the world. But we are sisters, and it seems we have no rights at all."

In UK law there is a 40 percent inheritance tax an exemption for the first $500,000. Married couples, and couples in civil partnerships, are exempt from the tax.

The sisters’ house cost about $14,000 to build in 1965 but was recently valued last at about $1.6 million. That would mean the surviving sister would be required to pay nearly $600,000 in death tax.

Great Britain should ditch the oppressive death tax, and if it wants to maintain a law that grants partner benefits to people who cannot, by the nature of their relationship, conceive children, then it should do so fairly.

8:13 PM
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Interesting website - do you visit www.365gay.com often to find articles to post?

In any event, I don't quite understand the point you're making. I think it's along the lines that GB shouldn't grant same sex couples any benefits because they can't conceive children? Or, at the very least if they do - they should extend to all types of relationships that can't conceive children?

Do couples that adopt not deserve tax benefits? What about couples that aren't able to conceive children? It seems to me, that if that's your reasoning, then perhaps we should implement government infertility testing before we grant any marriage benefits then?

Posted by: Kim Ahern at May 4, 2008 10:54 AM

Kim,

It might save us considerable time for me to note that I've written extensively on same-sex marriage here and on Dust in the Light.

In a nutshell, my belief is that, in response to persistent insistence that our understanding of marriage be radically altered, society ought to consider:

  1. What it is that marriage is for.
  2. Why it is that the state has a legitimate interest in encouraging marriage.
  3. What benefits the society and the state derive from the encouragement of same-sex partnerships.
  4. What offered benefits to such partners would be keeping with that interest, with consideration of potential and likely costs.

This applies to your comment as follows:

GB shouldn't grant same sex couples any benefits because they can't conceive children?

GB should consider why it is that same-sex couples deserve benefits. My opinion: Yes, there are certain benefits that same-sex partners ought to be able to procure.

they should extend to all types of relationships that can't conceive children?

GB will likely conclude that some of the benefits made available to same-sex couples apply to other combinations that aren't sexually intimate. My opinion: Inasmuch as there is no benefit to society or the state to encourage homosexual sex, per se, all of the benefits that may justifiably be granted to same-sex couples ought also to be granted to other pairings that are not sexual in nature.

I'd also direct attention back to the phrase that I originally used: "cannot, by the nature of their relationship, conceive children." The wording is not careless.

As for the rest of your comment, again, I refer you to the thousands upon thousands of words that I've already written on the topic.

Posted by: Justin Katz at May 4, 2008 11:08 AM

$1.6 million-$500,000 exemption=1.1 mil

$1.1mil x 40% tax =$440,000
not $600,000

poor girl is left with only $1,160,000
not bad on a 14,000 investment

Posted by: Rob at May 4, 2008 11:34 AM