[NOTE from Editor: This post is somewhat explicit.]
Girgis, Anderson and George’s rebuttal to my earlier post (for convenience, I’ll call them “George,” after the most senior member of their team) was helpful to me, and clarified some of their arguments, for which I’m thankful. Nonetheless, it is no more persuasive than their original article.
I will attempt to explain my objection to their position again, drawing from from my now-improved understanding of their argument.
George’s argument is that there is something special about penis-in-vagina sex (which I will call PIV sex ** ) that makes marriage uniquely possible for heterosexual couples. As I understand this part of their argument, it goes something like this:
1) Marriage must be a comprehensive union of body and mind.
2) A comprehensive union of body can only be achieved via PIV sex.
2a) PIV sex is comprehensive because during such sex, male and female reproductive organs complete an otherwise incomplete reproductive system. This is true even if other parts of the reproductive system, such as the uterus, are missing.
2b) It doesn’t matter if one or both people having PIV sex are infertile, because the parts remain “oriented” towards their basic function of reproduction even if reproduction is physically impossible.
2c) Other forms of sex are mere pleasure, providing only individual benefits, and so cannot provide comprehensive physical unity.
3) Same-sex couples are incapable of PIV sex, and so are incapable of marriage.
My previous response concentrated primarily on their requirement of PIV sex. My point was that there is nothing special about PIV sex that makes it the only physical act that can be part of a comprehensive union.
It’s true, of course, that PIV sex sometimes leads to reproduction, and this is the major distinction between PIV sex and other forms of sex. But as George repeatedly argues, reproduction is not necessary for marriage. (“…marriage is not a mere means, even to the great good of procreation. It is an end in itself, worthwhile for its own sake.”) So if non-reproductive heterosexual sex can seal a union, why can’t homosexual sex do the same?
George’s response, as I understand it, is twofold. First of all, homosexual sex doesn’t complete the separate parts of a male/female reproductive system, and therefore can’t provide the body aspect of comprehensive unity.
To that, I’d respond, sure it can! Anticipating this response, George wrote:
Pleasure cannot play this role for several reasons. The good must be truly common and for the couple as a whole, but pleasures (and, indeed, any psychological good) are private and benefit partners, if at all, only individually. The good must be bodily, but pleasures are aspects of experience. The good must be inherently valuable, but pleasures are not as such good in themselves—witness, for example, sadistic pleasures.
In their response, George mistakenly said I never responded to the first two sentences of the above. But I did, writing:
George’s reductive, simplistic view of sex — if it’s not coitus, then it has no content at all, beyond simple pleasure felt individually — has little relationship to the variety and value of sex as many couples actually experience it, and is thus deeply unsatisfying to anyone who thinks arguments should be based on reality. There are literally thousands of witness-participants (both hetero and homo) who have reported having deeper, more meaningful, and more useful sexual experiences than George’s argument credits.
George claims non-PIV sex within a committed relationship is not “truly common and for the couple as a whole.” That’s simply not true. George’s argument requires ignoring how sexual pleasure is actually experienced by committed couples in real life; George’s argument contradicts reality and cannot stand.
Sex for humans (and possibly for some other primates, like bonobo chimps) is not only a means of reproduction; it’s also a means of bonding. As such, sex in both heterosexual and homosexual couples can provide a meaningful physical union.
* * *
Much of George’s argument is spent explaining why, if forming a complete reproductive system is what’s special about PIV sex, infertile heterosexual couples are allowed to marry. George writes:
Any act of organic bodily union can seal a marriage, whether or not it causes conception. The nature of the spouses’ action now cannot depend on what happens hours later independently of their control—whether a sperm cell in fact penetrates an ovum.
But obviously, spouses can control in advance whether a sperm cell in fact penetrates an ovum, if they’re determined. For example, both partners could have had their respective tubes tied prior to getting married. Or the woman may have had a hysterectomy. In these cases, couples fully control whether pregnancy occurs, but no one would say that they are therefore not “real” marriages.
George argues that it doesn’t matter if the reproductive system is in fact not complete, because it is still “oriented” towards reproduction.
Consider digestion, the individual body’s process of nourishment. Different parts of that process—salivation, chewing, swallowing, stomach action, intestinal absorption of nutrients—are each in their own way oriented to the broader goal of nourishing the organism. But our salivation, chewing, swallowing, and stomach action remain oriented to that goal (and remain digestive acts) even if on some occasion our intestines do not or cannot finally absorb nutrients, and even if we know so before we eat.
The digestive system as George describes it has only one function (nourishment). As George describes the system of coitus, however, it clearly has two functions: reproduction, and facilitating comprehensive unity. (These functions are distinguished within George’s own argument, since George argues multiple times that unity occurs and is valuable regardless of conception). This is an essential distinction.
Sex in humans is less like the stomach and more like the human mouth; even if the digestive system isn’t functioning, we can still use the mouth for other functions, such as breathing. And just as a mouth is “oriented” towards both nourishment and breathing, sex between humans is oriented towards both reproduction and bonding.
So why should we believe that only PIV sex can facilitate comprehensive unions, and it does so even when the couple is infertile? George would say it’s because, even if the reproductive system is incomplete or blocked, only in PIV sex is a biological system’s purpose in any sense made whole. But George is mistaken, because our sexual systems, like our mouths, are oriented towards more than one purpose. The purpose of bonding, with all its attendant goods, is made whole by many kinds of sex, not only by PIV sex; when we bond with our spouse (of either sex) through sex, that too fulfills a function our sexual systems are biologically oriented towards. Comprehensive bodily unity is not a good that’s limited only to heterosexual couples.
* * *
Another difficulty I have with the “comprehensive unity” line of argument is that it’s a test never applied to heterosexual couples. Anticipating this argument, George points out that non-consummation is, in our legal tradition, grounds for annulment. But an annulment on grounds of non-consummation only happens when one or both spouses chooses to pursue it. It is voluntary and chosen by at least one member of the couple, and so is not comparable to a standard applied involuntarily by those outside the couple.
An annulment on grounds of non-consummation is not an instrument used by outsiders to the marriage to prevent two consenting, non-related adults from forming a family. It’s not a prior restraint on getting married; if a straight couple publicly declared their intent to never have PIV sex, that would not prevent them from getting legally married. If a man has lost his penis in an accident, and this is somehow known to authorities, there is still not a single state in our union in which he would be forbidden to marry.
(For that matter, although there has not yet been a test case as far as I know, the in-practice meaning of non-consummation may prove more ambiguous than this discussion assumes. I suspect that in states that recognize SSM, same-sex couples who have never had sex together could seek annulments on the grounds of lack of consummation.)
In short, the standard George proposes is not an objective standard applied to all couples equally. A test that appears designed to catch out same-sex couples, and which is never applied to opposite-sex couples, displays traits of unjust discrimination, rather than the traits of a neutral standard fairly applied.
* * *
Again, my thanks to Girgis, George and Anderson for their response. In my next post commenting on their argument, I will discuss what marriage is, and the problem of incestuous marriage.
** FOOTNOTE: I was persuaded to switch to the term “PIV sex” after reading this post by Rob Tisinai. I’d highly recommend reading Rob’s entire series of posts responding to George et al.
POST-SCRIPT: I haven’t made any arguments based around the example of trans people and marriage, because I’m uncertain what GG & A think their policy preferences say about marriage prospects for trans people. (I have guesses, but not certainty.) But it’s a matter of interest to me and to many of my readers. So let me ask directly. If the authors of “What Is Marriage?” are reading, could you please tell us:
1) Do you think a couple consisting of a cis woman and a post-operative trans man can have a “real” marriage? (“Cis” means someone who is not transsexual; a “post-operative trans man” is a man who was born with a physically female body, but who lives his life as a man, and who has had sex reassignment surgery.)
2) Second example: Can a couple consisting of two woman, a cis woman and a pre-operative or non-operative trans woman, have a “real” marriage? (A “pre-operative or non-operative trans woman” is someone born with a physically male body, but who lives her life as a woman, and who has not had sex reassignment surgery.)
Categories: Marriage
I had no idea people argued over this stuff.
I thought this was a good point
“An annulment on grounds of non-consummation is not an instrument used by outsiders to the marriage to prevent two consenting, non-related adults from forming a family.”
Except for the fact that the two unrelated adults are not forming a family so much as they are joining one another’s families by means of contract. I think that’s how it works right? You marry into another person’s family. So sex really has nothing to do with it you could marry someone that was just your friend as many elderly people do in order to possibly leave a good friend your social security benefits after you pass away. I’ve attended two weddings of people in their 70′s and 80′s recently. Kisarita once said whats to stop siblings from marrying eachother and I said they are already family, marriage is for making someone unrelated to you a member of your family. There is the implication of romatic involvement but many people marry for political reasons or stay married for political reasons. Can’t really dictate their motivations so long as they are unrelated, willing and unmarried – have fun.
Why would anyone want to stop people from getting married over whether they want to have PIV sex. This term will be a running joke for me from now on. It reminds me of that other obligatory alphabet boring sex that married people have ABC sex – Anniversaries Birthday’s and Christmas.
pretty soon Barry no one will have to worry about SSM. It will be completely legal because there will undoubtedly soon be children born with mixed genes from two men or two women, or maybe genetic mixes of several adults, or maybe just clones.
Then everyone will agree the subject of complete reproductive systems will be totally meaningless.
We won’t have to worry about the human rights issues with surrogates because children manufactured via genes from two men will spend their fetal development in the uterus of a genetically modified pig. But maybe we won’t even need to grow them in the feminist-friendly farm animals because we won’t have a need for men in this world at all- because we can make sperm via female stem cells.
After all, children don’t really need fathers. They just need some random number of adults that love them.
Alana what is your point? Same sex marriage does not have to make two men or two women “parents” of a child that’s only related to one of them. I think its possible to let people get married if they want. But its not fair to name any unrelated spouse as the parent of a child that is really someone else’s offspring.
Was it not wrong in your case? I’d like to see the marital presumption thrown out. Its just as absurd to claim the mother’s husband is the other parent as it is to say the mother’s wife is the other parent if the child in question is not a person’s offspring that person should not be named as parent. Marital presumption threatens real families, not same sex marriage. One of them can be a parent and the other a step parent.
Everyone talks about adoptees and donor conceived. So many of the people looking for their relatives are what I call “stepped on” its when the person grows up believing the spouse of a parent is their parent. Sometimes its on the birth certificate, sometimes its paternity fraud against a duped guy, sometimes its a conspiracy between a parent and someone willing to pretend so they can block the other real parent from contacting the child, sometimes its done by holding out and simply using the last name of the parents boyfriend or spouse until the lie takes on a life of its own. I think there are more stepped on people than adopted people. Not more than anonymously conceived people there are millions of those tall genetically engineered upper middle class children of med students that are athletic, musical and multi-lingual.
I agree! In fact, that exact argument is in the post I’ve written for Wednesday.
feminist friendly farm animals? What’s that supposed to mean?
At the risk of repeating myself, let me point out that siblings are NOT considered family in the legal sense of the word.
They are not first in line to inherit (children and parents are), they are not included on eachother’s health insurance, they have no financial responsibility with eachother unless specifically contracted for, one can not obtain residency status for one’s foreign born sibling.
How are siblings legally recognized as family? Only by not being allowed to marry.
“feminist friendly farm animals? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sadly, just more anti-feminist, anti-gay snideness.
Alana S., your issues with gays acting as parents will not in any way be resolved by opposition to gay marriage. Gays will act as parents whether they have a marriage contract or not. The marriage contract will only ensure that their union is more stable, which is in the best interest of their children.
But somehow I doubt that matters to you.
You’re right that the sibling relationship doesn’t come with as many rights and responsibilities as the parent/child or marital relationship.
But it’s not all or nothing; siblings do have more legal rights than a stranger would, or even a cousin.
For example, if I’m in a coma in a hospital, with no living parents, children, or spouse, my sister would have the right to direct my medical treatment (assuming I didn’t write legal paperwork giving someone else that right). If I then die without a will, my sister would be first in line to inherent, ahead of any cousins, aunts, etc.. If I’m an American citizen and my brother is not, the federal government will recognize that relationship, and my brother’s chances of someday being able to immigrate to the US are much higher. In some states, there are laws allowing family courts to order sibling visitation rights. If the parents die (or are legally found incompetent as parents), an adult sibling can apply for custody of their underage siblings and courts would ordinarily defer to that relationship, unless there’s a compelling reason not to.
So siblings are recognized as not only family, but as more immediate family than cousins, aunts, etc.., in many ways.
“How are siblings legally recognized as family? Only by not being allowed to marry.”
Kisarita – Wwwhat? Siblings are legally recognized family based upon whether or not they happen to share one or both of the same parents. Not Step I might add but real parents. Which does include adoption but that is neither here nor there.
You are legally family because you are related through your parents and if you had a disabled sibling that had no spouse and both parents were dead (I have friend planning for his brother at the moment) you could become the guardian of that sibling. Or what is that word power of attorney I have this over my mom.
Marriage is good for the country because it can keep people off of public assistance when they are out of work, say for instance when they are raising children and the woman stays home the husband supports her as well as his children that he would be legally obligated to support anyway were they not married. Marriage keeps adults off welfare and keeps them from consuming other services that our tax dollars pay for in case of emergency, all sorts of services. Marriage makes two adults each others dependents like a child is a dependent on a parent. Its a safety net. People do better when they pull their financial resources and again that is better for everyone because less people will fall through the cracks and require public aid. A child relies on private funding from parents and when parents have an emergency and can’t support their child, the parent along with everyone else has paid into an infrastructure there to support the kids in times of need. An adult who is unmarried relies on themselves for private funding, there is no back up private funding. An Adult who is married they have back up funding. Less people needing those services is better for all of us but they are there for any of us when we need them.
So here it is – why do we as a country care what sex a person’s back up funding comes from? I do find it terribly unfair that people pay into social security all their lives and if they are married and die their spouse gets their death benefits. If you are a straight person in a sexless marriage to your best friend (as many elderly people are) their best friend can receive the death benefits. If you are elderly say and your best friend that you don’t have sex with happens to be the same gender as you, no dice. I mean these people worked for that money their whole lives and they can’t get out of it the same thing everyone else does? Granted its not real fair to single people but it sort of is, its not like you could know when you’d die in advance and take it early for yourself. And if nobody is your dependent then nobody is relying on you. Why can’t two mutually consenting adults decide that they want to provide a safety net for eachother? How is that a detriment to the public good?
I find associating marriage as being good for children very dangerous politically because I want to end the marital presumption. Of course I recognize that having both parents in the same house with the child every day is better for the child than living seperately. Its just not the kind of thing anyone can control externally though so I find it boring to talk about how its better. Everyone knows its better its the goal and when its not possible we do the next best thing. But same sex marriage does not create a situation where both parents are in the same house anyway we still have a situation where one parent lives one place and the other parent lives someplace else. I’m totally against the marital presumption making a step parent figure the legal parent in straight or gay marriage because it destroys the legal ties to people who reproduced to create the child without a court documented relinquishment like guardianship or as much as I’m not fond of it, adoption. There is still consent of the parent to no longer meet their obligations to a child. There needs to be consent.
And, just as significantly, gay couples who marry will be free to choose not to have children, and Alana S. will be free to try to persuade them not to have children.
The issue of legal, optional same-sex marriage is a separate issue from that of gay parenting. If they are related, it’s because supporting legal, optional same-sex marriage is the only reasonable choice for someone who cares deeply about the issue.
gay couples can not “have” children together.
They pay or persuade someone of the opposite sex to abandon THEIR child and then try and convince themselves and everybody else that it’s progressive and good.
marriage has everything to do with parenting.
The huge trend of lesbians having so many kids via sperm donors makes ENORMOUS statements about the value of Fatherhood. Those statements make their way into the world views of single-moms-by-choice and married women sick of their husbands who are considering divorce and they make permanent and LIFE CHANGING decisions that will effect the children for the rest of their lives.
Extraordinary social instruments are needed surrounding sperm reaching egg activity and penis-in-vagina sex because EVEN WITH birth control, babies are often born, and those babies deserve a meaningful relationship with their REAL mother and father. Marriage ensures that.
Wtf is wrong with civil unions?
Alana, where I come from, the majority of gay couples had a child the old-fashioned way—heterosexual sex, from when they were trying their damndest to live as straight people. That may be hard for you to see as someone who was raised in San Francisco, but really—in much of the US “heartland”, coming out as gay gets one shunned by one’s family. I know a smaller nmber of gay parents who adopted, but if you’re going to condemn adoption there shouldn’t be any need to differentiate the sexuality of adoptive parents.
You forget—the greatest majority of single mothers, and certainly the only single mothers prior to reproductive technology, exist because some man walked away from his parental responsibility. Usually with full-on societal support too; the stigma against “deadbeat dads” didn’t exist until recently. In my father’s era and before, it was accepted that men would give a wink-and-nod to being sexually monogamous with their wives; prostitutes and mistresses were a fact of life. The societal prescription for a man who ended up getting a woman he *didn’t* want to marry pregnant (or, if he was already married) was…deny paternity and dump the woman. There was no blood test to prove otherwise.
Just saying—lesbians aren’t to blame for the lack of fathers doing their share of the parenting. That issue existed, and still exists, in a far greater number amongst heterosexual women. If “fathers aren’t necessary”, it’s by and large because so many fathers are making that statement THEMSELVES, via their actions.
Marriage is no guarantee of anything. There are millions of dysfunctional married people. There are married people who maybe would have been ok in their marriage if they hadn’t had children (not everyone wants to be a parent, and yes, people are still pressured into making that and other poor decisions for themselves against their real desires). What marriage is, is a legal framework that outlines rights and responsibilities. If that contract is being broken in reality, one can then move to legally terminate what is already broken—we call that “divorce.”
Civil unions are second-class citizenship. Period. That’s what’s wrong with them. But as I’ve said before here, perhaps the reasonable compromise on that is for the State to grant civil unions only, to everyone, while religious institutions grant marriages. Religious institutions who discriminate against gay people could go on their merry way, while religious institutions like mine would be free to grant marriages to everyone.
Alana S. “They pay or persuade someone of the opposite sex to abandon THEIR child and then try and convince themselves and everybody else that it’s progressive and good.”
You’re leaving out the large numbers of adoptive parents who take in children who have already been abandoned, which is a pretty huge omission. I don’t have the stats right now, but I suspect these situations vastly outnumber the ones you’re talking about.
And you still have not explained how keeping gays from getting married is going to stop them from adopting children, nor have you offered a suitable alternative to the security that having two married parents would provide to said children. A civil union is prima facie less than marriage, and thus can never offer the same type of security.
I’m so torn. I was told about this site by a blogger here because of my strong views expressed on other sites against anonymity and closed records. What she did not also know is that I am a proponent of legal recognition of marriages between people who are the same gender. Marriage between people of the same gender is good for children when the children are the offspring of the parents, because they can be with both of those people on a daily basis typically rather than alternating between the parents at different residences. However being with both parents daily is not so hot if they are unable to stop arguing.
Children don’t benefit from marriage betweeen a parent and a member of the opposite sex who is not also a parent. That person is a step parent. The parent is obligated to the child whether they are married or not and the child benefits from support from both parents even when they are seperated and any benefit to having a relationship with a step parent is secondary to the important relationship with their actual parents. I am totally against the marital presumption, punitive father registries and any other attempt or loophole where two people of the same or different genders say they are forming a family of their own by excluding the childs real parent and pretending that raising the child counts more than being related. If they are going to do it they’d better do it on the record.
So why do people who could win and get the law changed to recognize same sex marriage keep undermining their goal by saying that their marriages will be good for children? Are you thinking? Or do you just not want to win? Because if you are a parent and you are in a homosexual relationship any partner you have will be a step parent. Equally I think the same thing of a heterosexual couple. There is no obligation to support another person’s offspring but their should be an obligation to support your own and be named as parent on their birth certificate
“Wtf is wrong with civil unions?”
Nothing.
Because it’s so peachy, maybe you should not get married and instead accept a second-class status that denies you federal benefits and isn’t acknowledged in most places in the country. See how that works out for you and your future kids.
And again, even demanding that gays and lesbians take a second class status will do nothing to appease your concerns over sperm and egg donors.
those babies deserve a meaningful relationship with their REAL mother and father. Marriage ensures that.
If only it were that simple. In spite of what poets tell us, real relationships require effort. Effort may not be sufficient, BUT a relationship that no one put any effort into seems like it would be hollow rather than meaningful…. but maybe that’s just me.
One good way to ensure a meaningful relationship won’t happen is to stay away.
Gay couples, with regard to their ability to conceive their own children, are exactly the same as infertile heterosexual couples.
Adopting a child does not always involve contact the biological parents. It’s possible for biological parents to give up their children, to be unfit to raise children, or to die.
That’s a meaningless assertion. It is possible to get married and not have children. It is possible to have children, to adopt children, or to otherwise become responsible for a child without getting married.
I’m trying to figure out what you’re saying here. Are you suggesting that lesbians having kids via sperm donors makes a different statement about the “value of Fatherhood” than single women who are married to men having kids via sperm donors?
Here’s my view: gay couples aren’t different from infertile straight couples. Marriage does not imbue either category of couple with the ability to conceive children. Therefore, gay couples deserve the same marriage rights as infertile heterosexual couples.
Here is my interpretation of your view: [I] am so fervently opposed to donor-conceived children that I believe it is reasonable to use gay couples as a means to an end, to prevent them from “sending” the wrong message.
Marilyn Huff writes:
Marilyn, I don’t think your statement is true across-the-board. You’re presenting a false dichotomy: either a child is raised by both biological parents, or there is an absent parent who should have a relationship with the child. That simply doesn’t reflect reality. There will always be children raised by one or more people who are not their biological parents. Parents die. Parents go to prison. Parents neglect or abuse their children.
There will always be adoption. You may believe that being raised by two biological parents is preferable in every way to adoption. Be that as it may, there will always be adoption.
You seem to be making the claim that it doesn’t matter whether a child is raised by a single parent, by two unrelated and unmarried adults, by a parent plus an unmarried partner, by a parent plus a married partner, or by two married people who are not related to the child–that these, in your eyes, are all equally inferior to what you view as ideal. If that’s your view, I disagree, and I think most reasonable people would also disagree. The perfect (biological parents who stay married for life!) is the enemy of the good (being raised by the best and most stable loving adults that a given child has access to).
Correction: the question after the third block quote in my last post should have read, Are you suggesting that lesbians having kids via sperm donors makes a different statement about the “value of Fatherhood” than single women or women who are married to men having kids via sperm donors?
Phil I actually very much agree with you. I do not associate biology with any kind of ideal person to care for a child. I understand that life does not work that way. My chief concern is that nobody other than a biologically related parent be recorded as the biologically related parent for record keeping purposes and vital statistics. Intended parents should be recorded as intended parents and adoptive parents as adoptive parents so that consent by parents can be recorded also so that situations like the donor whose child had down syndrom and was given up for adoption by the mother and her husband are not erroneously recorded as being the child of an unrelated man becausse of custody and support concerns because that man’s health historry was not germain to the child. Had the father been documented on the birh record of that child and all previous and future children, he would have been aware that his children wer born unhealthy and could have made a decision to stop creating children. He might also have taken hs child home to his family rather than have is babies adopted out to third level strangers. Our country looses if we attribute somethng like down syndrom or infant mortality to the health history of the wrong man or no man at all and that is precisely what cur4ent laws are not protecting the safety of children or of the public.
The movement toward honesty is commendable but you can’t rectify a lie to the government by telling a child the truh h or by giving the child access to a donors identity when they turn 18. Disclosure has to be more public than the people paying would like and to that I say tough titties. Your embarassment is secondary to the safety of everyone who relies on the accurate recording of vital statistics.
Phil
“marriage has everything to do with parenting.
That’s a meaningless assertion. It is possible to get married and not have children. It is possible to have children, to adopt children, or to otherwise become responsible for a child without getting married.”
I agree with you completely – what I wrote must make me seem like much more of a hater than I am.
I don’t have a problem with recognizing gay people’s marriages,
I have a problem with recognizing married people’s lies. Which I’m hoping some one on here GETS.
Straight people don’t deserve that little loophole of marital presumption and we should chuck it. Nobody should get a hall pass saying its ok for to lie about related to a kid on a technicality, stragjht or gay. Hell no. Who a person screws is none of anyones business whereas who a person raises is.
“Straight people don’t deserve that little loophole of marital presumption and we should chuck it.”
It’s not a matter of whether they deserve it or not.
The only way to overturn the marital presumption is to involve a huge level of government intervention which translates into massive violation of human rights , all for negligible results. (Some of which may be truly traumatic to the people involved- neither the government nor we can say what would be better in which case. This is a secondary point, but important nonetheless: because a state is allowed to violate individual rights provided provided they can delineate a clear benefit. Which in this case, they can’t.)
Same sex couples aren’t less deserving of that in anyway either, its just that the biologically impossible can not be presumed.
“what I wrote must make me seem like much more of a hater than I am. ”
I understand the point you are trying to make Marilynn but may I just ask that the accusatory (conversation killing) label/word “hater” (or any similar assumptions) be left out of this completely on the FS blog. There is no “hating” involved here. If there is/was/are, those comments would be deleted.
Excuse me Karen, I’m sorry. I used the term in a self deprecating way – not outwardly directed. I’ll watch my mouth. Is it the slang that bothers you or the word hate? Are there circumstances when the word hate can be used like in hate-crime, hate-mail? I do ok writing for someone who did not go to school but sometimes the street-talk bubbles to the surface, its who I am.
No worries – no apology – as I said, I understand the point you are trying to make…be yourself, always. Don’t self depreciate. I just want to try to avoid the word/label “haters” – which has been used in the past by others to silence civil debate. That’s all. I very much appreciate your contributions.
Irie
Kisarita Here is some law about how siblings are considered family for tax purposes does that count? I have included some tax stuff for you to read on how siblings are familyQualifying children as dependents
Qualifying children must first be “children” in the sense of § 152(f)(1). The term “children” includes adopted children, children placed for adoption, stepchildren, and foster children. Id. Qualifying children must have the same principal place of abode as the taxpayer for more than one-half of the year and must not have provided more than one-half of their own support. § 152(c)(1). They can include a taxpayer’s children, a taxpayer’s siblings, half-siblings, or step siblings, or the descendants of a taxpayer’s children, siblings, half-siblings, or step siblings. §§ 152(c)(2), (f)(4). They may not have reached the age of 19 by the close of the year, unless they are students, in which case they must not have reached the age of 24, or unless they are permanently and totally disabled. § 152(c)(3).
A child cannot qualify as a dependent on more than one tax return, so the code has a set of rules to prevent this from happening. § 152(c)(4). The code first attempts to break the tie by limiting eligible taxpayers to the child’s parents, followed by the contending non-parental taxpayer with the highest adjusted gross income. Id. If more than one parent attempts to claim the child and they do not file a joint return, the code first attempts to break the tie in favor of the parent with whom the child resided longest during the taxable year. Id. If that does not break the tie, the parent with the highest adjusted gross income wins the right to claim the child as a dependent. Id.
For the treatment of children of divorced parents, see § 152(e). For a case in which children are missing and presumed kidnapped, see § 152(f)(6)…
[edit]Other qualifying relatives as dependents
A qualifying relative cannot be the qualifying child of any taxpayer. § 152(d)(1). The individual must have gross income less than the amount of the personal exemption. Id. The taxpayer must have provided over one-half of the individual’s support. Id.
The allowable relationships between the taxpayer and the qualifying relative are almost innumerable, but under no circumstances can the relationship be one that violates local law. §§ 152(d)(2), (f)(3). Included are children (in the broad sense of § 152(f)(1)), descendants of children, siblings, half-siblings, step-siblings, father, mother, ancestors of parents, stepparents, nieces, nephews, various in-laws, or any other non-spousal individual sharing the taxpayer’s abode and household. § 152(d)(2).
Special rules dealing with multiple support agreements, handicapped dependents, and child support are detailed at § 152(d)(3)-(5).
Maybe I don’t know what you mean by residency status Kisarita but it appears that a us citizen who has a sibling that is not can bring their sibling over into the us as a permanent resident.
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=b8c93e4d77d73210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=b8c93e4d77d73210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD
Who is Eligible to Sponsor a Sibling?
If you are a U.S. citizen and at least 21 years old, you are eligible to petition to bring your brother or sister to live and work permanently in the United States. -If you are a lawful permanent resident, you are not eligible to apply to bring your brother or sister to live and work permanently in the United States.- How Do I File the Visa Petition?
For more information on how to petition for your brother or sister to live in the United States permanently, please contact the Immigration Law Offices of Rosanna Berard.
i stand corrected!