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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (131458)	3/13/2001 10:04:14 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

<<It seems to me that it would be in society's interest to encourage the formation of stable households and thus to make it a little difficult to form and unform them.>> I agree that stable households are in society's interest. I'm just concerned about the overhead and unintended consequences of establishing a new legal construct called a household. In the first place, you have the problem with resistance to the change. I am as surprised as you to see so little opposition around here to the notion of gay partnerships. Still, it would take a lot of our national energy and political capital to get people acclimated to it. I question whether that's cost effective. Then you have the problem of writing the law and regulations to cover your household agreement. You mentioned an example of two widows without children who had been friends all their lives as candidates for a household. That makes sense. But how about one widow and a divorcee? Or with children? Or had been friends for only two years? I don't want to dwell on that example, only to point out that you're getting the government involved in defining who is qualified to form one of those stable households. Try drafting the law and regulation and you'll get a headache pretty quickly. Then imagine creating a new bureaucracy to manage the program. And changing all the forms in the country that now say "married, divorced, single..." to include "householded." (Wonder which stocks would benefit from that huge expense. Hmmmm.) I think that what gays want is 1) some recognition for their relationships and 2) the same financial benefits as married couples regarding health insurance, inheritance, medical spokespersons, etc. My point is only that, before we run off on some exercise to create a new category of legal relationship, we look at tweaking existing laws and practices to be more even-handed. Karen