Georgia GOP Chair Warns That Straight People Will Enter Sham Gay Marriages For Benefits

[Capt. Obvious]

A top Republican in Georgia has sounded an ominous warning that legalization of same-sex marriage may also lead to fraud.

Sue Everhart, chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party, told the Marietta Daily Journal in a story published Saturday that once gay nuptials are legally permitted, there will be nothing to stop a straight person from exploiting the system in order to claim marital benefits.

“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” Everhart said. “Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/georgia-gop-chair-warns-that-straight-people-will

That would never be an issue for a man and a woman engaging in a sham marriage for the free ride.

And of course, she went on to talk about how unnatural the gay sex is.

[Scuba]

1. Straights already exploit the marriage laws. They don't have to enter into same-sex marriages ...

... to do so. Happens every day.

[hobbit709]

2. Why do I always get the feeling someone is projecting when they spout crap like this.

[Wounded Bear]

5. Because they probably are.....?

[Cal Carpenter]

6. My sentiments exactly

People who see it this way, who immediately default to fraud, or act like gay marriage is all about sex, or who extrapolate gay marriage into marrying your dog or bestiality or pedophilia...


I mean, whose brain goes there? What the fuck?

It has more to do with their sick twisted minds than it does with gay people who want to marry their partners.

I am sure that some politicians/pundits do it in order to conflate these things in the minds of their supporters - deliberately, even though they 'know better', propaganda style.

But sometimes it really seems like they believe this shit they spew. Really? Fraud? Wouldn't it be easier to fake a hetero marriage anyway, socially etc? Why would gay marriage even be more prone to fraud?

I know these questions are all hypothetical. There are no answers to this insanity

So weird.

[Helen Reddy]

3. They have plenty of "sham"

onto themselves to worry about do they not?

GOP. Ugly they are.

[Fla_Democrat]

4. I've seen this movie

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762107/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Does he look a lot like Steve Buscemi?

[Arcanetrance]

7. Yes because people would willingly for no reason open themselves up to the hatred and

Persecution that sadly happens to gays and lesbians

[PolitFreak]

8. Oy!

[brewens]

9. I know an older couple, my buddies dad and his girlfriend, that had no

intention of getting married until they realized she could get on his medical plan. They would no doubt still be together, married or not, but that's the reason they are married.

It had occurred to me that anyone could get married regardless of gender or if they ever touched each other, just for the benefits. That never bothered me. I've always felt that a number of things were unfair, especially taxes and medical insurance. I never thought it was right that marital status or who you were married to, should give you an advantage, at least where those two things are concerned.

Being single, I thought the "marriage tax penalty" was a crock. At least in my tax bracket, I could look at the tables and see that I'd be paying less if I were married. Every single year. It was a single tax penalty as far as I was concerned.

[zipplewrath]

11. Co-signing for a loan

Truth of the matter is, the states interest in marriage is mostly about these sort of "social contracts". Really, from the states perspective, they should make marriage something akin to cosigning for a loan. Basically you're agreeing to some basic asset sharing, for which you recieve benefits from either the government, and/or an employer. The contract would have some binding characteristics, and effectively a "prenup" about when and how it could be terminated.

[zipplewrath]

10. Already happens

Gay people marry the opposite sex for benefits. Straight people enter into sham marriages for benefits including green cards and other immigration issues. Then we have "shotgun" weddings. I've known a few folks over the years that got married because the woman became pregnant and it was a way to get her medical care through an employer. In some cases they didn't even bother to move in together. Heck, we have "sham divorces" where people get divorced to protect assets from loss due to disease.

[brewens]

13. The last Civil War widow died in 2004. What do they think that was about?

There were a bunch of those old veterans that married young girls to help them out with the benefits.

[Poll_Blind]

18. I don't understand. How would a civil war vet marrying a young girl "help them...

...out with the benefits"?

PB

[brewens]

20. They got a pension their widows would keep collecting. I don't believe it was

a lot of money but that woman, if I remember right, was a sharecroppers daughter.

[Poll_Blind]

21. Oh, okay- gotcha! Thanks for the explanation. nt

PB

[riqster]

26. Not just the Civil War

Other conflicts since then: during Y2K, such survivor's benefits ( from the Spanish-American War, WW I) were still bring paid to the much-younger widows of much-older veterans. Perfectly legal, and it took some calculating and a good bit of programming to ensure that their checks would keep coming.

[sofa king]

24. Also patterned in-marriage.

I think that's what the anthropologists call it. In the Civil War and its aftermath it was not uncommon for a sibling or relative to marry the widow of a fallen family member. A widow's life was not a comfortable one, so many families simply found another person within the family to fill the legal gap. A father or uncle might marry a very young widow, for example, to provide that person with some sort of support. Others, like Simon Bolivar Buckner, were widowed themselves after the war and took on much younger wives (all of my examples here are Confederates, whom I do not think were entitled to the same benefits, at least at first, but they're the examples I know best).

Certainly one of the most influential examples is the story of George Hugh Smith, a VMI graduate and hard-fighting colonel who only narrowly escaped death numerous times in the Civil War.

Smith's cousin, George Smith Patton, also a VMI grad and also a colonel, was killed at the battle of Opequon in 1864. After the war, Hugh Smith married Patton's widow, Susan, and started up a legal practice in California. It's not easy to guess what the nature of that marriage really was.

Smith entertained a great many guests at his California ranch, including his stepson, George S. Patton Jr., who also practiced law in Los Angeles, and his step-grandson-and-cousin, young George S. Patton. Other guests, such as the "Grey Ghost," John Mosby, would walk young Georgie though the great battles of Virginia using the geography of Hugh Smith's ranch.

One could argue that it was the patterned in-marriage of the Pattons that focused young Georgie on a military career, rather than a legal one.

[Poll_Blind]

27. Thank you for taking the time to type all that up- I could watch a documentary about that.

Very interesting stuff!



PB

[zipplewrath]

19. From Georgia

That case wasn't from Georgia by any chance was it? It'd be perfect. Just the kind of thing Maddow would love.

[SamKnause]

12. Marriage ?

I know a straight couple who did this.

She wanted on his insurance because she did not want to work.

She is extremely religious.

She doesn't believe in equal rights for homosexuals.

She doesn't think homosexuals should be allowed to teach children.

Imagine that.

[Purplehazed]

14. She should have argued in front of the Supreme Court.....

"Your honors, DOMA merely prevents straight people from pretending to be gay"

[Capt. Obvious]

15. That's a Taitz argument if I ever heard one

[madokie]

16. I feel sorry for her husband

What a life this woman must live

[PatSeg]

17. They should pass a law

that all married people have to prove they are having SEX!!!

I'm afraid to imagine how much dumber these people can get.

[MotherPetrie]

22. Funny how she equates marriage with "a free ride"

So if it is a free ride, why should only reproducing heterosexual couples get to take advantage of it? Especially since their reproducing costs taxpayers lots of money?

[sofa king]

23. Yes they will.

And why shouldn't they? All marriage is to the law is a resource-sharing contract between two people. The fact that any two people cannot enter into this arrangement suggests that religion is already too deeply entrenched in the process, for dubious reasons.

I keep waiting for some clever lawyer to point out that the flimsy excuses for marriage as it exists hinge upon the concepts of procreation and family raising, and that married couples without children, or with grown children, might be open to a lawsuit that seeks to nullify those contracts as well as those between gay couples. Is a man a man after he is sterile? Is a woman a woman after menopause? Is a childless marriage a "fake" marriage, and if not, why not, when it is so clearly the case with other couples just like them except in gender?

In keeping with the concept that conservatives feel no empathy for those they harm unless they are harmed in a similar way, why not start using conrfiscatory marriage laws against those who are trying to make marriage "safe," by attacking the institution itself and calling the finances of every married couple into question?

[mikeytherat]

25. ...nothing to stop a straight person from exploiting the system in order to claim marital benefits

Nope. Doesn't exist, never will. Straight people would never exploit this system. Why I don't know several people personally who have not done this.

mikey_the_rat

[upaloopa]

28. Why can't a man and woman enter into a sham wedding!

I think it is done so people can stay in the country legally.