RNC chief: Gay marriage will burden small business

[sketerpot]

Wow, and these clowns think gays are the ones who are against marriage? "Oh no, when employees get married, they start wanting spouse benefits! Let's make this only about gay marriage, somehow!"

It's as if these guys are determined to be everything they are accusing gays of being.

[Themightytom]

Do businesses have to pay for benefits regardless of whether the employee signs up for them? it could just as easily be "Sweet! my gay employee's spouse has better insurance!". i'm not really sure though i tried to look it up and my head exploded.

At first glance I thought this was a rehash of the argument that they tried here in NH that wedding photographers would be forced to take pictures of gay weddings. that didn't work, the bills getting signed.

[General Zod]

Do businesses have to pay for benefits regardless of whether the employee signs up for them? it could just as easily be "Sweet! my gay employee's spouse has better insurance!". i'm not really sure though i tried to look it up and my head exploded.

At first glance I thought this was a rehash of the argument that they tried here in NH that wedding photographers would be forced to take pictures of gay weddings. that didn't work, the bills getting signed.

An employee can opt-out if they really wanted to, for example if their private insurance is better and their employer wouldn't have to pay for that particular employee. But. . .the thing is with US insurance in its current state it's pretty much impossible for anyone but the independently wealthy to have private insurance that's actually worth a damn. So most employees will take the insurance benefits when they can.

[Patrick Degan]

What percentage of the US is homosexual? At maximum half of these people would leave the workforce. Now, what percentage of the US is unemployed?

If the former is lower than the latter, then Steele's own argument is that official unemployment and welfare dependency would be reduced as the unemployed take up the jobs left by those leaving to become dependents of their spouse... He didn't really think this through, did he?

You have to bear in mind that Republicans have exempted themselves from the necessity of thinking through the consequences of any of their various goofy ideas. This has been an increasing trend ever since the GOP made the choice at some point to detach itself from reality. They've insulated themselves from realfact; relying instead only on RNC/Fox-approved goodfact as their basis for decisionmaking. The resulting disinformation loop has trapped the party's upper eschelons as much as its army of mouthbreathing, credulous drones and this trend is only bound to become ever more pronounced as time wears on.