NO MONEY OR SCIENCE WILL BUY OUR SILENCE ON THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE!
Today was the day that the Prop8 folks had to admit that all the money that marriage has to offer the state of California doesn't matter to them.
Surely, denying the profit motive - one of the most basic ordering principles of our society - is irrational, unbalanced, indicative of a strange animus? I know, probably not, as a general principle, but it does seem relevant how much these benefits are overlooked, almost wholesale.
Among other economic costs of discrimination, linked to marriage denial: bullying in school (nearly 100K absences, costing maybe $40M), lower cost of state-supplied health insurance (maybe tens of millions), foregone higher property values, liftetime earnings/savings. The list goes on.
We don't know how the Plaintiff's will summarize this evidence, but it appears that they are doing a lot to tug at the heels of the notion that Prop8 is a costless benefit to society, with the Prop8 notion that marriage has 'broader implications' than for the two people involved.
Social science claims about the impact of discrimination and the cost of second-class status on the mental health of minority groups, including gays, were on trial.
Prop8 had a LOT to say about that. At all costs, no definitive science that gays are a 'suspect class' can be allowed unchallenged to the maximum, even though most of the conclusions of the impact of stress are...shall we say, obvious?
Ref 1: CCampaign
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Prop 8 Trial, Day 4 - My Stylized Summary
