Where's the Equal Protection?

Considering that I've actually read the 14th amendment, I am aware that the equal protection clause specifies that the states can't deny equal protection under the laws; but shouldn't we be able to expect equal treatment and equal protection under the laws of the federal government as well?  We should, but we aren't going to get it and that point has really been driven home in the last month or so.

We don't get treated equally by the government.  Not at all.  Especially when it comes to a tax code that says some pay 35% of their paycheck, others pay 25%, some pay 10% and some pay nothing at all.  And instead of railing against the inequality of this, people scream that those paying 35% aren't paying enough.  It should be equal.  The same percentage for everybody.

One of my pet peaves is that somebody making the exact same amount of money as I do will pay much less in taxes than I do because they have children and I don't.  As if not being able to find somebody who wants to marry me and being physically incapable of having children isn't hard enough, I have to pay higher taxes as a result of those things.  How's that equal?  If it's based on pay it should be based on pay.

Now we have the backroom deals where some states will get money and others won't.  Some people will have to pay taxes on their healthcare plans and others won't.  This bank should have to pay back money they borrowed, but that one won't.  This company that is failing gets saved but the government, but your company won't.

We have taken a country begun with the belief that we are created equal, and legislated inequality.

During the first round of the tea parties we were told to "learn our history" and that the original tea parties were about taxation without representation.  Well I don't know about you, but I'm not feeling represented.

The colonists were fed up with Parliament saying we need money for these people over here, so we're going to take it from those people over there.  Isn't that exactly what's happening now?  Isn't our government saying that if the poor need money they can just take it from "the rich".  Talk about a lack of representation, the rich people in the US have no representation at all.  If you dare to stand up against the idea that they should always be on the hook for paying whatever the government needs, then you are villified.  I'm not rich, not even close to it, but the way they are expected to foot the bill for everybody else in the country offends my sense of fairness.

If we're going to have an income tax, then everybody, and I mean everybody, who earns money should pay the same percentage of their paycheck in taxes.  What's more, I think we should do away with the payroll taxes and everybody should have to write a monthly check for their taxes.  Of course the government will never do this and it's not hard to figure out why.

If those in the lower income brackets, which I have fallen in for much of my adult life, were to actually have to feel the impact on their own checkbooks, they would be the fiercest guards against government waste.  The staunchest defenders of small government and personal liberties.  If you have nothing and the government is taking that from you, you're going to be sure they're not wasting your hard earned money. This is exactly why the government works to exempt these people from any taxes at all.  With no skin in the game they don't really care how the money is spent.  Why should they?

Can you imagine what would happen if there were a house in Congress where, like the Senate with the states, every tax bracket had the same number of representatives and had the same representation? 

I'm completely fed up with the legislation of inequality in this country and my point, after all my rambling, is that if a piece of legislation applies to one person, it should apply to all people equally.

Separate But Equal Marriage

I got into a debate on gay marriage with a gay friend of mine, and the "separate but equal" issue around civil unions vs marriage was raised. One man commented saying that civil unions are tantamount to the civil rights issue of separate but equal programs and facilities , and even suggested that we'd prefer the gay people to ride in the back of the bus. A bit of a stretch don't you think? So this raised the question of whether gay marriage is actually separate from heterosexual marriage. I say yes.

To me, if you cannot say "I now pronounce you husband and wife" at the end of the ceremony then it is not marriage. A marriage was designed to bring 2 individuals together, and at the end of the ceremony they are no longer those 2 individuals, but a husband and a wife. Two halves of the same whole. This is why I believe that a gay union, though it can have the same emotional commitment, the same love, and should have the same rights as a marriage, is not a marriage.

Try asking a gay couple which is the husband and which is the wife and see what kind of reaction you get. This is the reaction I got from the question, "I have never thought of an answer to that question and never will. It is offensive to even ask an ignorant question like that. In any relationship that I am in there are two men and we would both be a "husband." The terms husband and wife are strictly titles as they should be. This is setting the entire female movement back 40 years. What "role" would you define as a woman's role? Dishes? Laundry? At home in the kitchen with a baby on the hip? If you are talking about sexual roles we refer to that as top and bottom. However some people are adventurous and go both ways. Regardless of any of that information I am not going to be emasculated by some bullshit title that you want to try to slap on me or any other gay man." The fact that you would even have to ask that question makes it separate from a heterosexual marriage. And do you think if you asked a heterosexual couple that same question you'd get the same defensive answer? Nope. Therefore, it is different. It is not the same. And this is not about roles of women vs men, but the titles of the parties involved in a marriage.

The separate but equal stance on the racial issue was wrong because the blacks were no different from the whites. They weren't asking that anything be redefined to include them, but that they, as people, were already included. The gays on the other hand are asking for marriage to be re-defined. That alone makes the reference to the civil rights issue baseless and not just a little bit offensive. In things other than marriage, relating to discrimination due to their sexual orientation, I can see the reference. But not as far as marriage goes. Their unions are separate. They are incoherently different from a heterosexual union. Therefore a separate but equal benefit is the logical solution.

But that separate but equal is just not good enough. It's an all or nothing stance that many have taken. Instead of being happy with the legal rights for now and continuing to move forward, they won't accept the compromise and continue to push and push hard. And wasn't it Newton's Law of Physics that said that every action has an equal and opposite reaction? Which means that the harder they push, the more resistance they meet. And who is suffering due to this refusal to compromise? They are. By not accepting the legal rights compromise, they are losing out on the main point they wish to secure. Interesting approach to the problem.

And now I have been informed that I am still violating the rights of the gays by not supporting their right to define marriage how they want. So the argument has basically come down to the belief that they have a right to define marriage how they want, but I do not have that same right. Interesting stance. And any position I take against it is illogical, while the stance they take for it is logical. How can you have a debate with somebody who believes they are the only ones allowed to make the rules?