Michael Steele, Gay Marriage, and Business
I couldn't believe my eyes when I read that the current GOP chairman floated the boneheaded argument that Republicans should advance their opposition to gay marriage by showing how "gay marriage" will hurt small businesses.
My first reaction, after I put my incredulous eyeballs back into their sockets, was to ask, if Steele really believed that gay marriage would hurt business, why wouldn't interracial marriage or heterosexual marriage or any marriage hurt business in the same way? Really. Didn't Steele even think about what he was saying? The implications are so damn obvious.
There is absolutely no way Steele can make the argument that opposing gay marriage saves businesses money by denying the civil benefits of marriage without coming across as specifically targeting gay people for discrimination in the workplace by sharing in the exact same institution and the benefits it provides as heterosexual employees.
Steele's comments reveal that the GOP is desperate, flailing, and incapable of recognizing that, in a civil society grounded in equality, there is NO good, sustainable argument for denying gay people the civil benefits of marriage.
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But gay marriage would cost businesses money. There is that.
It would cost taxpayers money, too, in the form of Social Security survivorship benefits, at a time when our Social Secuity system can't even come close to bearing the demographic load it has to carry in the forthcoming years.
Yet another reason for the government to get out of marriage altogether. Your social security benefits should die with you, and everything else is dependant on property law and powers of attorney. Employers should be free to offer insurance plans however they want... if they don't want to cover spouses, children, or same-sex partners, there is no compelling reason why we should force them to... offering health insurance is a benefit! All gay marriage would do is de-incentivize an employer to offer health insurance at all. (Which would be a great thing, IMHO... health insurance works much better when it is tied to an individual and not to a job).
Eric - Of course it would cost businesses money and it would cost taxpayers money. But that's an argument to oppose any kind of benefits for marriage regardless of whether it's gay marriage or heterosexual marriage. If you make that argument, which is what I think you are doing, then I have no beef with that, though I would disagree with it.
But what appears obvious to me is that Steele is not making that argument. He is not advocating that such benefits be denied heterosexual marriages or interracial marriagens or any other kind of marriage (i.e. folks on their third or fourth marriages). He's specifically using this argument to exclude one group from these benefits only because of sexual orientation.
So, it's not an argument whose end goal is nondiscriminatory fiscal policy, but whose end goal is specifically discriminatory fiscal policy.
In other words, it's using fiscal arguments to target gays with the sole purpose of excluding them from benefits because they're gay, which is horrible, immoral, and unjust thing to do.
"In other words, it's using fiscal arguments to target gays with the sole purpose of excluding them from benefits because they're gay, which is horrible, immoral, and unjust thing to do."
So then, let's say the government did away with marriage altogether, and it became a purely civilian arangement. Wouldn't your argument still be that employers, for instance, who offer insurance plans to straight couples should be forced to offer plans to gay couples? Even if the employer objected to homosexuality on religious grounds? Or if they were concerned about higher insurance premiums due to having to insure a gay man (for whom health and life insurance premiums are often 3x the norm)? Some companies won't hire obese people for similar reasons, are they within their rights?
Is it fair, in your opinion, to say that if homosexuals can't get these benefits, even at the private level, then nobody should get them (because, for a variety of reasons, some employers would simply cease offering these benefits rather than extend them to homosexuals)? Or would you say that as long as they can enjoy the same property and survivorship rights as everybody else in the eyes of the law, issues of conscience should be left for individuals to decide? Do people have a right to make decisions about being inclusive (or exclusive) towards homosexuals based on religious criteria? (I personally have no moral objection to homesexuality, but I'm not a Christian. If I was a Christian, I couldn't ignore what the Bible says about it.)
I would agree with you that the decision to exclude gays from various coverages is unjust and often mean-spirited, but it is also unjust to force people to act against their personal conscience without just cause. In some cases, such as with gender and race, society has elected to say personal conscience is less important than the injustice of discrimination, and I agree with that decision... but I'm not sure sexual preference is in the same category as those. At the end of the day, homosexuality is something you do, not something you are (i.e. a woman who is attracted to other women but sleeps exclusively with men would not be considered a lesbian by conventional standards). It is a grey area, or at least much more grey than race and gender... and as such I'm not willing to legislate matters of personal and religious conscience, even if I might disagree with the decision people make on the issue.
Wouldn't your argument still be that employers, for instance, who offer insurance plans to straight couples should be forced to offer plans to gay couples? Even if the employer objected to homosexuality on religious grounds? Or if they were concerned about higher insurance premiums due to having to insure a gay man (for whom health and life insurance premiums are often 3x the norm)? Some companies won't hire obese people for similar reasons, are they within their rights?Yes, my argument would be that employers who offer insurance to straight couples as a specific benefit of their civilian arrangement have no basis upon which to discriminate if that same civilian arrangement existed between gay couples. Of course, this requires that society embrace the notion that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is as unacceptable as discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, etc. And, in fact, our society generally does embrace this notion.
Your other questions treat two different things, which I need to distinguish in my answer. First, should an employer be allowed not to offer the benefits of health insurance to gay couples on religious grounds? This presupposes that at least one of the gay couple is already employed, and that the sexual orientation of this employee is being used as a basis for discrimination. If this is the case, the "religious objection" argument has no legal merit because the person is already employed and is being denied, exclusively on the basis of sexual orientation, a benefit specifically offered to employees. To use your example of the obese person: if an employer actually hires an obese person, and then denies that employee a benefit offered to all employees just on the basis of his obesity, the discrimination is unfair. It would be like hiring an elderly person for his or her skills and then saying, oh, by the way, I won't pay for your insurance because you are elderly and actuarial tables clearly indicate that you will cost me 3-4 times as much as a young, healthy employee.
Now the other question is whether or not an employer has a right not to hire someone at all on the basis of sexual orientation (or religion or age or obesity or race or any other reason). That's a different question altogether. I would hold that if an employer didn't want to hire someone for whatever reason, then that is the employer's right. So, if an employer objected to hiring gay folks or Jews or Catholics on "religious" grounds, fine. BUT, you can't hire someone and then deny him or her benefits that you offer to your employees.
I would agree with you that the decision to exclude gays from various coverages is unjust and often mean-spirited, but it is also unjust to force people to act against their personal conscience without just cause. In some cases, such as with gender and race, society has elected to say personal conscience is less important than the injustice of discrimination, and I agree with that decision... but I'm not sure sexual preference is in the same category as those. At the end of the day, homosexuality is something you do, not something you are (i.e. a woman who is attracted to other women but sleeps exclusively with men would not be considered a lesbian by conventional standards).
I agree that it is unjust to force people to act against their own personal conscience without just cause, but that's not what we have here. No one forced an employer to hire a gay person; and the fact of that person's hiring indicates that their "personal conscience" regarding sexual orientation is really not the issue. In our example, it's not an objection to being gay or even having a gay partner, it's an objection to affording benefits to gay people that come with the institution of marriage, benefits that the employer presumably is happy to offer to their straight married employees. So the "moral" argument seems to have very little to do with objections regarding homosexuality as such, but rather regarding affording the benefits that come with the institution of marriage on the basis of discrimination exclusively due to sexual orientation.
And I disagree with you that homosexuality is a "sexual preference." There is strong and convincing evidence to indicate that it is hardwired into an individual's DNA. Even without conclusive evidence of this point, it is enough for me to warrant equating discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation as on the same level as race or gender.
"BUT, you can't hire someone and then deny him or her benefits that you offer to your employees."
What about the employer who, based on personal conscience, thinks it is none of his business who his employees sleep with, but also thinks, based on personal conscience, that he shouldn't be forced to give the idea of "husband and husband" or "wife and wife" the same credibility as the idea of "husband and wife"? This employer might offer individual insurance benefits to all employes, but only extend family coverage to children and to "husband and wife" couples. Would that be a fair exercise of personal conscience in your point of view? While I personally would disagree with this employer, I think he has a right to make that distinction.
As to the second circumstance, what about an employer at a small business who wants to hire a qualified job applicant who happens to be in a same sex marriage, but the employer can't justify the decision if it would substantially increase the group insurance premiums he pays for his other 10 employees? Is it fair that the gay person lose the opportunity for a $5,000/month salary over a $1500/month benefit issue? Shouldn't the employer be allowed to offer the job minus that particular benefit, and allow the applicant the decision whether to take it? Either way, they are still being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. The only difference is whether they are made aware of it or not.
[This whole thread brings to mind the huge and nonsensical mistake I believe we have made as a society by abdicating so many health and life insurance decisons to employers, but that is another conversation!]
Ultimately, I think our whole society benefits from more homosexuals becoming more committed to paired, lifelong, monogamous relationships. The gay community certainly stands to benefit in some dramatic ways. I'd love to see these relationships encouraged, affirmed, and rewarded by society-at-large, but I don't think it can be judicially mandated like it was with civil rights in the last century, because the role of nature vs. nurture are blurred (I think the smart science points to the likelihood that both play a role in sexuality, whereas with gender and race, it is pure genetics). Doing away with anti-sodomy laws was a wholly reasonable and justifiable battle for gays to fight, but I think the attempt to force society's hand via judicial mandate on the gay marriage issue may ultimately do more harm than good for the 'normalization' of gay couples in broader society.
What about the employer who, based on personal conscience, thinks it is none of his business who his employees sleep with, but also thinks, based on personal conscience, that he shouldn't be forced to give the idea of "husband and husband" or "wife and wife" the same credibility as the idea of "husband and wife"?It's not a question of giving the idea of "husband and husband" or "husband and wife" the same credibility. It's about giving them the same benefits under the law. I might not morally approve of interfaith marriages of my employees, but that is not a reason for me to deny benefits to employees in such a marriage that I would gladly give to employees who are same-faith marriages.
Of course, what we can't escape in this scenario is that, at the root, the employer is looking for some kind of sanction to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation as it relates to benefits that come out of an institution that cannot avoid the subject.
And Michael Steele's argument, besides, is not to engage the issue on the moral front, but to do so strictly on the fiscal side of things. He's using the wedge of costs to sugarcoat a workplace discrimination based on bigotry as opposed to work production. i.e. I reward my employees because they conform to my belief system, not because they conform to objective measures of productivity. If, in the minds of an employer, it doesn't matter what his employees do in their private lives, it shouldn't matter whether there's a gay marriage to deal with or a heterosexual marriage to deal with -- a marriage is a marriage.
" If, in the minds of an employer, it doesn't matter what his employees do in their private lives, it shouldn't matter whether there's a gay marriage to deal with or a heterosexual marriage to deal with -- a marriage is a marriage."
Your argument that it "shouldn't" matter is exactly the heart of this issue, though. You already said you were willing to grant employers a wide enough berth on matters of personal conscience to allow them to deny employmet to a qualified gay candidate on the basis of their sexual orientation, even though we both personally agree that sexual orientation "shouldn't" matter. But, assuming they were willing to put that issue aside, you then would deny them the ability to apply their personal conscience towards the matter of defining, within the scope of their company benefits plan, what the definition of 'marriage' should be?
I can't quite understand why you would endorse one form of discrimination based on sexual orientation (not hiring gays at all) but exlude another which is actually less harmful than the first! Whatever happened to not letting the pefect be the enemy of the good?
Also, I'll agree with you that Michael Steele seems to stick his foot in his mouth quite often, but I'm not going to fault him for being transparent about the real fiscal consequences surrounding the gay marriage issue as it relates to small businesses. When small business constitutes the largest segment of private employment in the country, and many of these employers would not be able to afford to offer insurance benefits if their group premiums dramatically increased, it is something people should be aware of when discussing the issue.
But, assuming they were willing to put that issue aside, you then would deny them the ability to apply their personal conscience towards the matter of defining, within the scope of their company benefits plan, what the definition of 'marriage' should be?I am willing to allow employers to decide whom they hire for whatever reasons they choose; but, once someone is hired, they should then not face discrimination on workplace benefits on the basis of their sexual orientation, whether that sexual orientation manifested itself in the concept of marriage or otherwise. Don't you agree that there is a difference between the two? Let's say, for instance, I have a personal moral objection to divorce on religious grounds. And let's say that one of my married employees gets divorced and then remarried. Would I be within my rights to refuse to offer insurance coverage to this employee and his new family based on my moral objection to divorce? Because I "define" marriage within the context of my company's workplace benefits as only and always a one-time deal, with any subsequent arrangements constituting some other kind of illegitimate union (certainly not marriage) in my opinion? Should I then go around making the argument that conservatives should refuse to accept marriages following divorces not because of my moral objection to divorce, but because it costs small businesses money? And, let me tell you, getting divorced is much more of a behavioral choice than being gay! Now, if I interviewed someone for a job and I asked that person whether he or she were married, divorced, etc., and then refused to hire that person because I am morally opposed to divorce, that's a different case altogether. I, personally, wouldn't agree with this policy; but, in a democracy where people have a right within certain private spaces to be as bigoted and discriminatory as they like, I would at least respect that employer's right to hire whomever he wanted, even if the reason were because of an irrational bigotry or belief system.
With regard to Steele and your not faulting him for being transparent about the fiscal costs of gay marriages to small businesses, that's fine. But I fault Steele for not making the equal argument regarding the fiscal costs of straight marriages to small businesses. What I hear you saying is that just because Steele mentions the financial impact of something (i.e. gay marriage) on small businesses, then that somehow legitimizes his position irrespective of the morality or ethical nature of this position. Steele might just as easily make the factual observation that the expensive costs of providing health insurance to older people should be an argument for cutting older folks off of any kind of insurance coverage, whether privately or publicly provided, after they reach a certain age because of the fiscal impact that this has on small businesses. Sure, this would save businesses lots of money (as would only insuring the white Americans among us); but it would, in my mind, be an unconscionably immoral and shocking position to hold.
Also, Eric, in terms of the perfect being the enemy of the good, I agree with you. The perfect scenario would be to have workplace decisions apply indiscriminately to employees on the basis of performance only. But I would phrase my position in terms of not allowing the good to be the enemy of the perfect. It would be ideal if employers BOTH hired workers AND offered them equal benefits irrespective of sexual orientation (and I would and do advocate for this); but it is still better that workers, once hired, aren't discriminated against WITHIN the workplace that accepted them, even if there are employers that wouldn't hire them in the first place. And in a civil democracy, I am personally willing to accept that employers can hire whom they want for whatever reasons they want. But I also think that once they do so, they have an obligation to provide this person with the benefits that come with that employment on the basis of equality in work performance with every other employee occupying that same functional employment position.
Steele's argument is a craven effort to justify discrimination against a targeted group of people sharing in a social institution only because it would save them money because this social institution has been fiscally privileged.
Huck, you make some good arguments here, and I do see the difference you are talking about between the two scenarios, but I still think it would be preferable to allow employers to define marriage how they see fit, and then let prosective employees decide if they want to accept the job with that benefit plan or not (and yes, that would include letting an employer refuse to cover the family of an employee who had been previously divorced). As long as the employee is aware of the sitatuation before accepting the job offer, they should be free to decide whether they would rather accept the job with the benefit penalty or not... in many cases it might be personally preferable for them to take the job without insurance, as opposed to not being offered a job at all (or maybe they can negotiate a higher salary for themselves in exchange for agreeing to be excluded from family insurance coverage). Perhaps it is because my employment background is mostly with smaller companies, but I tend to look at each instance of employment as an agreement between that particular employee and the company, where each party is responsible for making decisions about what is acceptable to them. The ultimate goal isn't to make sure everybody is treated equally, it is to make sure everybody is working in a job they agreed to for pay they agreed to under circumstances they agreed to. (And I say that as somebody who once took an entry level position at a company where I was paid less than everybody else hired in my group, for the same job, at the same time, simply because I never thought to try to negotiate for a higher starting salary and everybody else did).
Also, to throw another twist into an already complex argument... while many employers might be willing to cover gay couples as a family under their insurance plan, many (if not most) insurance companies offer no policies recognizing same sex marriages (so that, if a company sent in a request to add a non-employee to their policy as an employee's spouse, the policy would deny the coverage if the applicant was the same sex as the employee). I'd be interested in hearing your solution to that problem. Should private insurance companies be forced to re-write their underwriting policies so that they can't exclude family coverage based on sexual orientation? If so, would it be fair for Michael Steele to point out the increased premiums everybody else might have to pay if that were to happen? If not, should employers be forced to switch insurance companies to one that has offers 'gay inclusive' policies if they want to hire gay employees?
Also, I think your final comment speaks volumes about this issue when you mention that marriage is a social institution that has traditionally been offered fiscal privelages. That's really what the entire issue of gay marriage is about, and it is an important discussion that often gets lost in the fray. The privelage that married couples enjoy, at the end of the day, owes less to the fact that they are marriage than it does to the stability that habitually surrounds a family bound by lifelong commitments that are taken seriously. If the national conversation could be turned to address the importance of those commitments and the stability afforded by them (which applies to gay couples and straight couples alike), then this issue will become one that I would be willing to cast votes over. Until then, it is more of a sideshow to me, because on the natioal stage, both the political advocates and their opponents seem more interested in childlike taunts and tantrums than in a real examination of WHY these benefits should apply to a broader swath of society.
As long as the employee is aware of the sitatuation before accepting the job offer, they should be free to decide whether they would rather accept the job with the benefit penalty or not... in many cases it might be personally preferable for them to take the job without insurance, as opposed to not being offered a job at all (or maybe they can negotiate a higher salary for themselves in exchange for agreeing to be excluded from family insurance coverage).I would agree with this up to a certain point. I do think there are threshholds where abusive and exploitative arrangements should be prohibited regardless of whether the employee and the employer agree on them. For instance, indentured servitude should not be acceptable as a labor/employer contract even if the worker, desperate for anything, were willing to agree to the deal. But, yes, if an employer were clear about his biases and preferences up front, and if the employee knows of them as a part of the job offer, then I am willing to agree with you.
With regard to insurance companies not insuring partners/families of gay marriages, I don't think employers should necessarily be forced to find another insurer; but I do think that information should be made clear to potential employees before hiring. I frankly think that if an employer wanted a gay employee badly enough, and if it were in the best fiscal interest of the company's bottom line to have this person on staff, then not only the employer, but the rest of the company staff would willingly accept a change of insurer to bring this valuable potential employee on board. Likewise, I think insurance companies would adjust to this market trend, too, and seek to change their underwriting policies regarding gay marriage.
It is a complex situation, and there are sticky matters of drawing lines regarding unfair workplace and hiring discrimination, which I think we all agree are needed. At some point the state does have to take a stand against perpetuating bigotry in the workplace because it does have larger societal impact (i.e. the state shouldn't tolerate racism in the workplace because it damages society as a whole). But where those lines between the freedom to be bigoted in certain "private" spheres and the need to promote a larger societal interest in defense of justice and equality, can be hard to agree upon.
Hmmm.... hand-picked Obama Assistant Attorney General Tony West makes the argument in federal court, on behalf of the U.S. Government and his boss, President Obama, that the federal government shouldn't recognize gay marriage because it would be financially harmful to the government:
""The constitutional propriety of Congress's decision to decline to extend federal benefits immediately to newly recognized types of marriages is bolstered by Congress's articulated interest in preserving the scarce resources of both the federal and State governments. DOMA ensures that evolving understandings of the institution of marriage at the State level do not place greater financial and administrative obligations on federal and state benefits programs."
How is this in any way worse than what Michael Steele said (other than the fact that it is being used in federal court as an argument against gay marriage interests, while Steele was just blowing hot air on television)?
http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/obama-justice-department-defends-doma.html
I'll be looking for that post on the main site, stating that "Tony West's comments reveal that the Obama Administration is desperate, flailing, and incapable of recognizing that, in a civil society grounded in equality, there is NO good, sustainable argument for denying gay people the civil benefits of marriage."
;-)
Just trying to keep you on your toes, my friend.
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