Canada has WMDs

[ShadowHM]

Hi Occhi,

It is bound up in the desire of the people to subsidize gay marriage as a tax loophole exploitation, and to incorporate it as a societal norm.

Justice is justice, as Jester pointed out. We have a constitution and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that we take seriously. Incorporating societal norms is a weak way to state it.

Now, to address the other part of your comment:

I know next to nothing about how American tax laws treat marriage, so I can only speak to the way Canadian tax laws work. There are spousal deductions that are supposed to help families who have only one working spouse. How many are there of that sort of 'family' these days, in society in general, let alone in the small sub-set of gay relationships that are now going to be legally spouses? I only work part-part time and I have yet to qualify for that deduction.

There is a strong money component to the desire for legal marriage though, quite apart from the legitimizing of the relationship by the state. These almost all fall at the end of life. Life insurance policy payouts are made tax-free to a spouse, but are part of the last tax return of the deceased for anyone else. Most pension plans have a "survivor benefit" for a spouse, including our national Canada Pension Plan. Most Canadian married folks have, one way or another, made use of the "Spousal Donations" to our Registered Retirement Savings Plans. What this does is help equalize taxable income in the retirement years, when one wage earner has made more money over time than his spouse.

Now if any couple manages to stay married long enough to make use of these so-called loopholes, more power to them. They deserve them. And they sure don't deserve to be ousted of some of their combined life savings by some twerp of a nephew or niece that shows up and tries to contest the will.