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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TideGlider who wrote (77259)	1/8/2010 9:17:15 AM
From: lorne	6 Recommendations Respond to of 224729

New Jersey Senate Defeats Gay Marriage Bill NewsCORE Updated January 07, 2010 foxnews.com New Jersey's state Senate has defeated a bill to legalize gay marriage, the latest in a string of setbacks for advocates. The New Jersey Senate voted Thursday against legalizing same-sex marriage, making the Garden State the latest to turn down legislation that proponents have called a civil rights issue. The Freedom of Religion and Equality in Marriage Act failed by a vote of 20 to 14. The vote was scheduled to take place last month, but was postponed due to an apparent lack of support, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. New Jersey voters are narrowly divided on the issue, with gay marriage opponents finding more support by a 49-46 percentage point margin, according to a November poll from Quinnipiac University. State Democrats favor the measure 60-34, while Republicans oppose it 69-25, the poll found. The margin of error was 2.4 percentage points. Five states currently allow same sex marriage, while thirty have rejected similar measures in referendum votes. The state senate in neighboring New York, where many New Jersey residents work, rejected a gay marriage bill 38 to 24 in December. New Jersey currently allows same-sex civil unions, which accords adoption rights among other privileges. “They're still not happy. They want to dilute marriage," Rabbi Yehuda Levin of the Rabbinical Alliance of America told the Newark Star-Ledger prior to the vote. Activist groups say civil unions are a poor substitute for marriage. “If New Jersey’s civil union law were a person, it would be arrested for committing fraud,” reads a message on the Web site of Garden State Equality, a gay marriage advocacy group. “Civil unions will never achieve the acceptance and equality of marriage.” Proponents of the bill hoped to have it passed before Democratic Governor Jon Corzine, who supports the measure, leaves office. Governor-elect Chris Christie, a Republican, had vowed to veto the legislation if it passed. Christie takes office Jan. 19.

To: TideGlider who wrote (77259)	1/8/2010 9:18:16 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224729

Married Couples Pay More Than Unmarried Under Health Bill Online WSJ ^ online.wsj.com [...]The built-in "marriage penalty" in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say "I do." The disparity comes about in part because subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the plan from congressional Democrats are pegged to federal poverty guidelines. [...] For an unmarried couple with income of $25,000 each, combined premiums would be capped at $3,076 per year, under the House bill. If the couple gets married, with a combined income of $50,000, their annual premium cap jumps to $5,160 -- a "penalty" of $2,084. Those figures were included in a memo prepared by House Republican staff. [...]Under the Senate bill, a couple with $50,000 combined income would pay $3,450 in annual premiums if unmarried, and $5,100 if married -- a difference of $1,650. [...]Democratic staff who helped to write the bill confirmed the existence of the penalty, but said it cannot be remedied without creating other inequities. For instance, they said making the subsidies neutral towards marriage would lead to a married couple with only one bread-winner getting a more generous subsidy than a single parent at the same income-level. [...]The marriage penalty in the health bill has not been a major focus of attack by Republican opponents of the bill, who are focusing on larger themes such as new taxes in the bill and growth in government spending.