BreakPoint with Charles Colson
Commentary #040716 - 07/16/2004
Getting the Facts Straight: Same-Sex 'Marriage' and the Economy
It may surprise you to know that the Congressional Budget Office,
the agency charged with informing Congress about the cost implications
of bills it passes, in the weeks just running up to the historic vote
on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex "marriage," issued a
report titled "The Potential Budgetary Impact of Recognizing Same-Sex
Marriages." My immediate reaction was that there are a whole lot better
ways to spend federal tax money than studying the budgetary impact of
same-sex "marriages."
But wait. There's more. The report found that recognizing same-sex
"marriages" would have a positive effect on the budget. Now if you're
not getting a little hot under the collar at this point, you must have
a very different genetic makeup than I do.
To come to this conclusion the report measured tax revenues that would
be collected from same-sex "married" couples and health benefits that
would be paid to them. On the positive side, the report discovered that
there would be an increase in tax revenues ironically due to the infamous
marriage penalty. That's a laugh. For years we have been saying get rid
of that entirely, and to his everlasting credit, George Bush largely did
so in his tax bill. Now a government agency acknowledges the penalty and
says that gay "marriage" will increase taxes because of an injustice in
the tax code.
In calculating health benefits and social security services, the report
found that same-sex couples, because each one would be male or each one
female, would have similar life expectancies, not the discrepancy that
exists between men and women. This translates into less social security
survivor benefits. And it found that more people would be leaving
Medicaid because of their combined assets.
Particularly striking is that the report left out the fact that homosexuals
have a higher disease rate than heterosexuals. That's not gay bashing.
It's a fact, demonstrated in study after study. Health-care expenses would
rise for same-sex spouses. But wait a minute -- wouldn't marriage put an
end to the risk-taking behavior that increases homosexuals' disease rates?
Not necessarily. For a majority of homosexuals in long-term relationships,
outside sexual relationships are the norms. One recent survey showed that
only 25 percent of homosexuals in a committed relationship for more than
a year had been monogamous. In another well known study, only seven of
156 male couples reported being completely monogamous.
Since it's clear that a so-called "committed relationship" is hardly a
guarantee of risk-free behavior, the Congressional Budget Office made
a major error by not taking homosexuals' higher disease rates into
account.
But this debate is not about money. How do you put a dollar sign on
the most fundamental moral questions a society must ask?
All this report proves to me is that there is no end to government's
creativity when it comes to finding ways to waste our tax money. I hope
the congressional leadership will take a hard look at the budget of
this office.
And if they're going to intrude in areas they don't belong in, the
least they can do is get their facts straight. At this point, I'm
more interested in the actual cost of running the Congressional Budget
Office than I am the potential budgetary impact of recognizing same-sex
"marriages."
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Copyright © 2004 Prison Fellowship THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT.
THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. "BreakPoint with
Chuck Colson" is a daily commentary on news and trends from a Christian
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FURTHER READING & INFORMATION
Congressional Budget Office, "The Potential Budgetary Impact of
Recognizing Same-Sex Marriage," report to Rep. Steve Chabot,
21 June 2004.
<a href='http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5559&sequence=0' target='_blank'>http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5559&sequence=0</a>
Timothy J. Dailey, Ph.D., "Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual
Couples to Married Couples," INSIGHT, Family Research Council, 2004.
<a href='http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04C02' target='_blank'>http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04C02</a>
BreakPoint Commentary No. 031021, "Hazardous to Your Health:
The Risks of Homosexuality."
<a href='http://www.pfm.org/BPtemplate.cfm?Section=Issues_and_Research_Pages&CONTENTI..' target='_blank'>http://www.pfm.org/BPtemplate.cfm?Section=...ages&CONTENTI..</a>.
BreakPoint Commentary No. 030924, "Your Tax Dollars at Work:
Reckless Spending at the NIH."
<a href='http://www.pfm.org/Content/ContentGroups/BreakPoint/BreakPoint_Commentaries/..' target='_blank'>http://www.pfm.org/Content/ContentGroups/B...Commentaries/..</a>.
Deborah Caldwell, "The Gay Marriage Ban: Where's the Groundswell?"
BELIEFNET, 13 July 2004.
<a href='http://www.beliefnet.com/story/149/story_14938_1.html' target='_blank'>http://www.beliefnet.com/story/149/story_14938_1.html</a>
Alan Cooperman, "Christian Groups Say They Won't Give Up,"
WASHINGTON POST, 15 July 2004, A04.
<a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50226-2004Jul14.html' target='_blank'>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004Jul14.html</a>
See BreakPoint's sanctity of marriage resource page.
<a href='http://www.pfm.org/BPTemplate.cfm?Section=Issues_and_Research_Pages&Template..' target='_blank'>http://www.pfm.org/BPTemplate.cfm?Section=...ages&Template..</a>.
