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Google To Add Pay To Cover a Tax For Gays
GrApHiX42 writes "Starting on Thursday, Google is going to increase the salaries of gay and lesbian employees whose partners receive domestic partner health benefits, largely to compensate them for an extra tax they must pay that heterosexual married couples do not. Google is not the first company to make up for the extra tax. At least a few large employers already do. But benefits experts say Google's move could inspire its Silicon Valley competitors to follow suit, because they compete for the same talent."
I always say, if people go to hell for sodomy, then you're going to hell for shaving and wearing a cotton-poly blended T-shirt - both things mentioned in Leviticus...I don't think it specifically mentions T-shirts though.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
The employee would have to declare that they need domestic partner health benefits. Google isn't "snooping", it's information the employee is providing.
If they qualify for domestic partner health benefits, I should think so.
It affects the people who are offended by it. They are offended--outraged even. And in a democratic society, these outraged people have a voice, and these voices in total are loud enough to force governments to punish the people who's behavior caused the offended people to become offended.
In fact, offense doesn't even really come into it. You can just have enough people who simply don't like another group and who will vote in punitive laws that will punish that group for simply existing. This is Democracy 101, otherwise known as the Tyranny of the Majority or at least the tyranny of the people who control the majority.
And this is largely how democracy is practiced today. And in case you think this only works one way, consider other things which have been banned/restricted like indoor smoking, fox hunting and chemical equipment ownership. In an age where the will of the people is absolute, people get what they vote for; or what other people paid to get them to vote for.
May the Maths Be with you!
[Anti-gay Christians] base this on a selective reading of the Old Testament
Now, I fully agree with you that the majority of anti-gay Christians are anti-gays who use the above passages to justify their bigotry, but hey, it's called bigotry for a reason.
However, I'll have to challenge you to select other passages from the bible that contradict or refute the ones quoted above. Sure, that filthy hippy Jesus waffled some peacenik tree hugging propaganda about loving and forgiving sinners, but I don't recall him saying that it wasn't a sin.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
There isn't an extra tax. Domestic partners health premiums cannot be paid pretax like a spouse or child's can. The part of the premium for the partner is considered income (imputed income).
That's like taxing tampons or pads because they know that 50% of people need them.
In the UK (and I believe the rest of the EU) they DO tax sanitary products. It took quite a lot of campaigning to get them placed in the 'reduced' rate of tax (5%) rather than the 'luxury' rate (currently 17.5%, soon to be 20%) as well. See here for example.
I'm not much to argue about the finer details of those particular scriptures; but I'd appreciate it if people recognized why Sodom and Gomorrah had to be expunged from the earth. The place was full of assholes! At one point they tortured some 11 year old girl to death for giving a starving man bread, because the girl was nice to someone (what a crime!). They tormented those in need. Any time someone new showed up, they turned a sadistic eye towards them immediately.
I think this is the most important lesson here. They didn't come to "have sex with" the newcomers; they came to brutally rape them.
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By and large I agree with you, however, you have benefited greatly from a society which chooses to educate children. So while I don't see why you should pay MORE to educate the children of the US I believe you should pay an equal share because the benefit is for society not just the parents.