Why doesn't the government treat the controverial issues of homosexuality and abortion with the same set of principles?

The government isn’t exactly known for its infallible logic. I don’t think consistency is often among the top concerns when making policies.

I don’t want my taxes funding wars I don’t agree with, but I get that I have to pay taxes and I don’t get to decide where each penny goes to. Why should abortion be the one area where people get their way?

How is the government paying to enable homosexuality?

The Hyde Amendment prevents federal tax dollars from paying for abortions. State and local taxes can still be used to pay for them – but that’s something to address with whomever creates your state or local laws, not hold up the federal government over.

Problem is, the really conservative people who don’t want to help subsidize abortion services for those who cannot afford them are the same people who also attempt to block access to birth control. Then when people ask what they should do if they want to have sex, they are told “Don’t have sex outside marriage and if you get pregnant, it’s a gift from God so you have to have the baby.” They want to force others to only have sex under circumstances that they approve of. It isn’t really about the money, it’s about their desire to use tax legislation and the withholding of funds to force their religious beliefs on others. That’s why they refuse to acknowledge that Planned Parenthood provides many other services besides abortions, and that the abortions they provide are not free.

I don’t believe that churches should be exempt from taxes, but they are. Why do my tax dollars have to support organized religion? Nothing is ever truly equal.

I would be more impressed with your friends if they gave an “abortion is morally wrong” arguement, rather than the “I don’t want to pay for it” position. How about “I am defending the unborn, who cannot defend themselves” position?
Me, I’m a Christian who believes in choice, but let’s not make this arguement over something as vulgar as who pays for it.

@filmfann They do not think it should be illegal. They are not that crazy. If they were that crazy, they would probably not be my friends. They simply do not feel good about paying for it.

Would you mind explaining the part about how homosexuality and abortion aren’t treated with the same set of principles? I’m not sure I follow quite what you’re asking.

Once a person pays their taxes, and once an agency receives any money from the state, how can anyone tell what’s happening with it? In a republic like ours, we’re all paying for something via our taxes that we’d rather not.

@josie But, they aren’t paying for it. The government pays for it, from the taxes they collected. Same as how they don’t actually pay for government worker’s salaries, or how the customer at a grocery store doesn’t pay for the cashiers paycheck, etc – at least, not in the “I pay for it, so I’m the boss” kind of way that seems to be inherent to this argument.

because people have issues with removing their set of “morals” from what the law should ensure. The Constitution states that all men are equal, people should be treated as such, BUT THEY’RE NOT. It’s a work in progress.

While we are at can I please stop paying for the Pentagon?

Your friends sentiment that they dont want to pay for it is just that I guess, a sentiment, since you said they dont think it should be illegal for the goverment to pay. Im sure they dont feel good about it because they disagree with abortion per se. Is there a chance they will change their minds in the future, maybe become more understanding? As for the goverment, things are always changing and evolving and who knows, the next generation may actually overturn roe v wade? I’ll be turning in my grave for sure.

@math_nerd Dare I ask why specifically the Pentagon?

Um, because it’s a medical procedure not a joke? Maybe I don’t want some of your homophobic friends to receive those pesky blood transfusions when they need them either but who am I to decide on their lives? No one. Obviously, I would never think any person shouldn’t have access to healthcare based on my ideology or beliefs but hell, apparently, that concept is lost on many people you know.

@mazingerz88 : I prefer even numbers. I would be cool if it was called the Octagon.

Or I prefer spending money on helping people instead of blowing them up.

Because, as @Simone_De_Beauvoir says, abortion is a medical procedure. There are people who don’t believe in blood and organ donation but does that mean a hospital shouldn’t use taxpayer money for transfusions and transplants?

I don’t know if this question can really be answered since anything resembling approaching the outskirts of the issue of abortion tends to evoke some sort of visceral reflexive loss of logic in many people. This seems especially common amongst those who are not prone to logic in the first place, like most ideologues.

Many refuse to allow any budget that may possibly give a dime to any agency who even mentions abortion as an option and would prefer to cut funding to an agency that helps prevent unwanted pregnancy and that provides low-cost healthcare for certain things and thus cause all sorts of other problems just because the word “abortion” comes up. (Yes, I know that some PP clinics actually perform abortions, but many do not.) And some will go so far as to proclaim that life is sacred as they take a sniper rifle and wait in ambush outside a clinic.

Also bear in mind that many of these people are so pro-life that they will not provide emergency contraception even in cases of rape and incest; think about that when you see a 13-year-old that got knocked up by her stepfather. Thankfully, many are slightly more logical than that, but the fact remains that that side of the debate seems to have a lot of people who let their heart shut off their brain.

Or maybe it’s as simple as a fervent belief that the government should not pay a dime for anything medical for anyone; it should all be out-of-pocket or by private insurance. There seems to be a lot of that within that camp too.

Regardless, it makes little enough sense that I just had to pop open a beer to help undo the brain-twisting incurred by trying to understand how people can “think” that way.

@Winters Right on!

@josie

“they cannot help but be engaged and enraged, because their taxes are used to pay for the procedure.”

But they don’t. The Hyde Amendment bans Federal funding for abortions.

@math_nerd yeah, why not social security as well? that is where most of all the money that the gov’t gets from taxes and borrowed money from selling bonds goes to. Also constitutionally, where was gov’t money first used for? The Military, what next? The common defense, after that? the common defense… and we never had such a deficit issue until recently when we decided after the cold war that hey, we like this ridiculous amount of spending which let us win the cold war, now let’s utilize it towards some bogus shit we don’t need.

And if you think about it, if Social Security and all the other shit that FDR enacted back in the thirties when we ACTUALLY NEEDED IT, were to be enacted now (as opposed to then), most of it would be shot down because a lot of it would be considered as ponzi schemes. (and on that note, WW2 got us out of the Depression, not any of the measures that FDR enacted, we were still in a greater deficit when the US started getting involved in WW2 then when FDR entered office, by a shit ton.

Seriously, a lot of that money could be better utilized, or better yet, not used at all. and while we’re at it LEGALIZE GAY MARRIAGE AND MARIJUANA