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Lawyers who have handled divorces told The New Paper on Sunday that while it was rare for a wife to maintain her husband, it depended on the circumstances.

Mr Michael Low of Crossbows LLP said: “In this case, it makes sense for the woman to pay the ex-husband, since their children are with him, especially whenthe wife has a higher earning capacity.”

Asked for her comment, Ms Lelia Loges, chairman of the work-life balance sub-committee at women’s group Aware, said: “I don’t see why she shouldn’t pay... “He had to sacrifice his job for her to succeed, and lost 18 years of a chance at a career and seniority in the work place. It will be hard to find employment now since he is past 50.

“She is successful because he stayed home and took care of the children, and he should be recognised for that support.”

the lefties who crafted this video seem to be seriously out of touch with the folks they are arguing against. Worlds apart.

To the point that I initially failed to realize that the piece is intended as satire, and I still think it utterly fails as a parody. Why? Because I and many others agree with it literally. Look, the essence of successful political satire is to take a position, alter it slightly, and ridicule the new, altered position. The goal is for everyone to thus realize just how absurd the original stance was, too.

Miss California, a practising Christian, was last week denounced by Miss America judge Perez Hilton on his blog as ‘a dumb bitch’ and unworthy of the Miss America crown because she gave the ‘wrong’ answer to his chippy question about gay marriage. Like most Americans – including the current Democratic President of the United States – she believes that marriage is ‘between a man and a woman’. Boo! Hiss! Rip her to shreds!

It wasn’t just the famously bitchy gay gossip-monger Hilton casting stones, however. For honestly and somewhat courageously answering his question Miss California was roundly condemned as a ‘bigot’ by hosts of gay and liberal bloggers, and was even denounced by the directors of the Miss California pageant who declared themselves ‘saddened’ by her views and that they had no place in the ‘Miss California family’, whatever that is. Most now agree with Hilton’s gloating claim that her answer cost her the crown.

Candidate Obama expressed the exact same view during the Presidential Election: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it’s also a sacred union. You know, God’s in the mix.” Instead of being scorned as a bigot and a dumb bitch, Obama was handed the Mr America crown by liberals and probably most gay voters. But I suppose that being President of the United States is a rather less important title than Miss America.

The crux case centres on a woman called Nishal, a 26-year-old Moroccan immigrant to Germany with two kids and a psychotic husband. Since their wedding night, this husband beat the hell out of her. She crawled to the police covered in wounds, and they ordered the husband to stay away from her. He refused. He terrorised her with death threats.

So Nishal went to the courts to request an early divorce, hoping that once they were no longer married he would leave her alone. A judge who believed in the rights of women would find it very easy to make a judgement: you're free from this man, case dismissed.

The income inequality gap continues to widen, the rich are getting richer, and their access to the levers of power in the political arena continues to broaden. And gay marriage, while largely considered a progressive goal, is a cultural issue — it doesn’t force the wealthy to mobilize their assets against their interests.

Labor rights, environmental protections, health and food regulations — these are the arenas that leave me more concerned in the long-term.

NYC is hoping to capitalize on all of those couples by promoting wedding deals and venues on its NYC I Do website. The rest of the state looks to make a cool $391 million during the same time period, a point some state senators drove home in the hours leading up to the crucial vote.

So far, appeals to basic human rights and dignity have failed to win over many state and federal legislatures in the gay marriage debate. Maybe it’s time gay marriage proponents start appealing to their wallets instead.

Income Taxes Married couples will be able to file their state tax returns jointly, though they will still need to file separate federal tax returns (either as single or head of household). Some couples who jointly earn less than $65,000 may end up paying less in state income taxes than if they filed individual tax returns because they will get what known as a marriage bonus. But some couples with higher income may be end up in a higher tax bracket by filing jointly. In other words, they would owe less if they remained single and filed separate returns, said Tina Salandra, a New York accountant with expertise in planning for same-sex couples.

Filing joint state returns is also likely to complicate matters for federal tax purposes, and it’s likely to cost the couple more in tax preparation fees (or time, if they fill out their own returns).

Here’s why:  Even though the couple must file separate federal tax returns (as single or head of household), they must still prepare a dummy federal tax return using a married filing status, so that they can use that data for filing their joint state return.

"Our unofficial Facebook policy is not to automatically delete comments that disagree with us, but when the comments come into untruths or uncharitable, then we have to delete them," Poust said. "And when it really becomes abusive we have to ban them."

According to the group, one Facebook post stated: "Eventually your kind of 'religion' will be extinguished from the memory of mankind forever, because this sort of interference in the lives of people you only wish to harm. You have NO MORAL AUTHORITY any longer because of your evil pedophilia."

Another said the Catholic church only approves of marriages "that produce altar boys to be molested."

The group deleted both.

Reasons why people marry have changed drastically through history, but does change bring improvement?

Guests

• Stephanie Coontz: Professor of history and family studies at The Evergreen State College and the author of a new book called "Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage."

according to the gay-marriage-supporting  New York Times in a piece last week titled ‘Amidst Small Wins, Advocates Lose Marquee Battles’:

…the bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New York failed by a surprisingly wide margin on Wednesday. In New Jersey, Democrats have declined to schedule the bill for a vote, believing that the support is no longer there. Voters in Maine last month repealed a state law allowing same-sex marriage despite advocates’ advantage in money and volunteers.

And on the other reliably liberal coast, California advocates of gay marriage announced this week that they would not try in the next elections to reverse the ban on gay marriage that voters approved in 2008; they did not believe they could succeed.

who would have guessed that screaming ‘BIGOT!!’ at beauty queens for believing, like most Americans, including President Obama, that marriage is between a man and a woman wasn’t going to be a terribly persuasive strategy? Whoever would have imagined that trying to blame black voters for California’s re-banning of gay marriage last year at the same time as trying to hijack their history of civil rights struggle and proclaim gays as ‘the new blacks’ wouldn’t play so well?  

And who could have possibly conceived that self-righteously denouncing civil unions, a much more politically achievable – and in my Limey Uncle Tom slut opinion also much more appropriate and modern – institution for giving same-sex couples legal protection as ‘riding at the back of the bus!’, and instead going pell-mell after gay marriage and respectability would have turned out to be such a tactical and strategic blunder?