Singles, the new minority

Law Dork referenced an interesting post here, from a recent TNR essay by Gregg Easterbrook. Now, I'm a big fan of Gregg's Tuesday Morning Quarterback articles now on the NFL website during the football season, but some of his social commentary seems a little off.

Easterbrook accurately states:

If significant numbers of gays and lesbians begin to wed, the 100 million single people may become more dismayed that still more people wearing rings get special deals while they do not. Equally important, for every gay or lesbian pair who weds, winning benefits, a couple of single people must be taxed more to fund these benefits. Benefits can't just be demanded; someone must provide them. Marriage benefits for gays and lesbians will not come from the pockets of those in traditional one-man-one-woman unions. The benefits will come from the pockets of the single.

This is a very valid question, and a point that needs to be considered. Having been single for all of my 20's, the add'l societal benefits married couples and people with children get absolutely amaze me. The tax breaks alone are enough to almost convince someone to get married and have kids from a financial perspective. The problem is that the argument Easterbrook uses to defend gay marriage in a previous essay kind of defeats the point he's making here.

In summary, Easterbrook states that marriage is all about love and who are we to prevent 2 people, regardless of the sex, from expressing their love and happiness in marriage. Unfortunately, though, none of the legal marriage rules take love into account. There's no love test people who want to get married must pass before they're allowed to get married. Couples aren't even asked as part of getting a marriage license if they actually love each other. It's completely irrelevant to the legal process surrounding the social institution.

This being the case, there will be nothing that prevents two completely unattached single people from getting legally married merely for the financial and societal benefits of doing so. We know this happens today with heterosexual marriage and gay marriage merely opens up the door to a whole new population who can take advantage of the remaining single people who will end up funding these benefits.