Georgia GOP Chairwoman Sue Everhart claimed over the weekend that legalizing gay marriage will lead to fraud and abuse as straight people try to game the system.
Everhart (pictured below) told The Marietta Daily Journal :
“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow. Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal.”
Everhart’s warning somehow overlooks the possibility of a straight man marrying a straight female friend just for the benefits. Gay marriage is also legal is several states, and straight people are no more inclined to commit marriage fraud in those states than states that bar gay marriage. Apparently there simply is no epidemic of marriage fraud.
“I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman,” Everhart continued. “There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”
Everhart became the first female Chairman of Georgia’s Republican Party in 2007. She has since become the first GOP chairman to serve three consecutive terms, indicating her local popularity within the party.
Everhart’s threat of fraud is nothing new among people afraid of changing current cultural norms. Last month as the Arizona legislature debated a bill that would require people to use the bathrooms tied to the sex on their birth certificate, the bill’s sponsor told a local television station .
“The city of Phoenix has crafted a bill that allows people to define their sex by what they think in their head. If you’re a male, you don’t go into a female shower or locker room, or vice versa. It also raises the specter of people who want to go into those opposite sex facilities not because they’re transgender, but because they’re weird.”
“Weird” people could already enter the bathrooms of the opposite sex before the city of Phoenix passed an anti-discrimination bill just as straight people can already enter marriages for reasons other than love before the legalization of gay marriages. Nevertheless, Chairwoman Everhart thinks straight marriage fraud will reign in the wake of gay marriage legalization because, somehow , it will.
