The low-paid should be helped as the low-paid.
The marital union of one man and one woman is a public good uniquely and in itself, and the taxation system, among so very many other instruments of public policy, should recognise that fact. It should recognise marriage as a unique public good, to which civil partnerships are not comparable. And it should recognise marriage as a public good in itself, whether or not there are children, a related but different public good of which other forms of recognition rightly exist.
With no legal requirement to be consummated, civil partnerships are unjustly restricted to unrelated same-sex couples. This iniquity must end. When it does, then some fiscal recognition of the public good that civil partnerships would then be might very well be appropriate. But not before. And that iniquity must end anyway.
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"With no legal requirement to be consummated, civil partnerships are unjustly restricted to unrelated same-sex couples"
ReplyDeleteInteresting point. So, do you think civil partnerships and the benefits that come with those partnerships should be extended to, say, two unmarried sisters living together, to just pull one example from my own personal experience?
I am rather interested in this idea, since I have never heard of civil partnerships outside the context of same-sex couples. I think I agree with you though, since I can't see a good reason for restricting civil partnerships to same-sex couples when there are a great number of other kinds of family settings that could benefit from them.
Oh, yes, I'd be all in favour of what you suggest. No one would have had the slightest objection to civil partnerships if they had been set up like that. There would have been newspaper stories about same-sex couples using a law "intended" for elderly siblings, but that would have been all, and no one would really have minded.
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