The New York Times continued a drumbeat of propaganda for same-sex marriage this weekend with a front-page story on "The High Price of Being a Gay Couple." It purported to estimate the financial hardships suffered by same-sex couples because they are not permitted to "marry."
But some of the paper's assumptions regarding their hypothetical homosexual couple (a lesbian pair in New York) bore little resemblance to the real world, while others inadvertently revealed why there is little reason to pity such couples.
For example, they assume this couple has two children and remain together for 46 years until the death of one partner. However, a survey in the journal Demography found that only 22% of female couples and only 5% of male couples (constituting only 0.05% and 0.01% of the population respectively), are raising even one child. And other research has shown that homosexual relationships are far less likely than authentic marriages between a man and woman to last for a lifetime.
Another of the Times's assumptions, however, was that the couple would be college-educated, with a joint income of $140,000. This reflects the reality that homosexuals tend to be more highly educated and to have, according to some surveys, higher disposable incomes than heterosexual couples (the median income for a family of four in New York is $75,000--barely half what the hypothetical "gay" couple makes).
© 2008 Opposing Views, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Opposing Views, Inc. is not responsible for the content posted on this website. Please view full disclaimer under Terms
Please select the category that most closely reflects your concern about this content, so that we can review it and determine whether it violates Civility 101 or isn't appropriate for some other reason.
Abusing this feature is also a violation of Civility 101.
Explanation:
OPINION:The New York Times "Cries" for Homosexual Couples
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
How long would marriages last
If they weren't...married? Is there a study that covers what percentage of straight people that form relationships but don't get married?
- quantummechanik
October 5, 2009 8:07PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Just Exactly Who is The Family Research Council?
I just made a long call to the Family Research Council in Washington DC, I was interested in possibly supporting them, I agree on many of the positions they claim to represent. I am setting here very disappointed, to use mild comparisons they appear to be modern day Pharisees and Sadducees. For you non Christians they may be people who have hidden motives and are not who they claim to be. It is impossible to determine who or where there funding comes from. For all we know they could be funded by interests in China who wish to have much more control over the USA. The Fact is we just don’t know who the money comes from or if they have hidden motives. Do any of you know exactly who there money comes from? Please don’t use the Evangelical Council as a resource to find more on this subject, you will get only general meaningless data from them. How about it Family Research Council, give us a list of your top twenty contributors and there amounts.
- Super Expert
October 21, 2009 2:20PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Huh.
As one spouse of a lesbian couple in California, the NYT's example sounds very, very close to my own reality. We have been together now for over 18.5 years. God-willing, we'll make 46 or more before we're through. We're both 48 and reasonably healthy. We are raising our two, yes, count them, two children together (twins, in fact). Our net income is not as high as the couple in the article, mostly because business has been poor the past few years, thanks to Bush's recession .
However, we are both college grads. One of us primarily runs our consulting business (my spouse) while the other (me) is primarily a stay-at-home-mom. This actually causes the tax laws to affect us even more harshly, since we cannot spread my partner's income across a joint income tax return at the Federal level, like most straight couples in our situation would do.
In any case, does something have to effect every gay couple equally in order for injustice to be considered injustice? For pete's sake. Not all the black people in this country were held in slavery prior to the emancipation proclamation. Does the fact that there were free black people living in the North mean that the plight of slaves was any less or that we should have been less invested in seeing them freed? Really???
These snidely hateful commentaries do not reflect well on the supposed " Christians " who write them.
- Babaroni
October 5, 2009 9:50PM
Reply to this Recommend (3)
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
I sort of assumed that lesbian couples
with children would be so dirt poor that they'd have to resort to robbing banks and such to stay alive, based on this sort of evidence.
Actually, that would be kind of a great movie.
- quantummechanik
October 6, 2009 1:29PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Well...
We haven't robbed any banks , but if the economy keeps squeezing, we could end up living in a trailer somewhere.
- Babaroni
October 6, 2009 2:16PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Seriously??
This is the the silliest "counterpoint" I've seen. Are you seriously trying to debunk the Times article because of its assumptions? Why don't you lambaste the font and the color of the newsprint while you're at it.
The Times simply picked numbers for illustrative purposes. The substance of the article is the issue. The real reality is, whether married for 46 years or 4 days, and regardless of whether you make 140,000 or 14,0000, there is a real, honest to goodness financial disadvantage to being gay couple versus hetero. That's the facts.
- sido
October 5, 2009 10:12PM
Reply to this Recommend (2)
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
difficulty
Due to the difficulty that homosexual couples have in adopting I find the articles comment about the low number of homosexual couples with children to be particularly disingenuous...
Though it is a close run with virtually everything else said in the article.
- MrBook
October 6, 2009 6:56AM
Reply to this Recommend (1)
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
An all-time low for FRC
This OP is the most sofisticated version of Jerry Springer audience member's comments I've ever seen!
The condensed version is:
"Na-uhh! A couple like that is not probable because everyone KNOWS that HOMOS don't commit for life like us NORMAL people!"
I don't know if anyone caught it but if you connect the dots, there is a mini-thesis in there. Here let me clean out the rest of the junk and reverse the order:
"the reality that homosexuals tend to be more highly educated and to have [...] higher disposable incomes than heterosexual couples"
is
"why there is little reason to pity such couples."
?! Now go re-read it and see if I'm wrong!
- Rice klowN
October 6, 2009 12:55PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
OR...
They are saying that because they make $140,000/year with a college degree is "why there is little reason to pity such couples."
So, after a certain income , we shouldn't care about their "equality"
In that case, they are kinda saying that if you can make a "good income," then what does equality really matter anyways. Worshiping that almighty dollar FRC? Trying to make it seem like equality should only be for the poor?
Oh wait, maybe they are just using the hypothetical's financial security to disparage the idea of giving a rats butt about the whole problem of higher cost of living for a certain group.
Unless I'm forgetting another possibility, there is no positive message here at all.
FRC has basically just said: that scenario is unlikely because I believe it is, and even if it were to happen the example couple makes so much money that you shouldn't give a crap anyways!
You are wrong, FRC, the crying is coming from the dying, soon-to-be carcass of FRC's bigotry driven fear machine, choking on it's last bit of rhetorical breath. Finding nothing but sparsely spread out molecules of oxygen left inside the furnace of reality!
- Rice klowN
October 6, 2009 1:13PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Myths in NY Times
One is glad to see The Times judged against fact. There ought to be a us cabinet position, secretary of logic,factual accuracy and style.
- bartolomeo7
October 11, 2009 2:49PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.