Beth's Contradictory Brain

New Jersey and gay marriage

This is the best post I've seen on the matter, it's by Dale Carpenter who has done lots of good writing about the subject.

I found this particularly interesting:

Nevertheless, by the end of next April, New Jersey will join four other states – Massachusetts, Vermont, California, and Connecticut – in giving gay couples access to all of the rights of marriage under state law. All by itself this is a significant development. Of the 300 million people who live in the United States, about 54 million (over 1/6 of the nation’s total population) will live in a state where gay couples have access to the same rights and obligations as married straight couples. Of those 54 million, about 40 million will live in a state where this result was achieved entirely legislatively (California and Connecticut). All of that has happened in just the last six years. The experience we gain and the lessons we learn from protecting gay families under the law in those states will be difficult to ignore in the years to come.

I still call it complete bullshit that gay couples would have to up and move their lives to one of a few, very few, states in order to be able to have a legal relationship. Although, Nerdstar would never mind moving back to Jersey.

Gay Marriage Part 39884203

The new proposed marriage ammendment makes me ill when I think about it, so I try not to think about it too much.

However, I did watch a panel discussion of it last night on C-Span that was really good. Then today I saw this post by one of the men on that panel, Dale Carpenter. He's also written a 20 page paper on this stuff, "The Federal Marriage Ammendment: nnecessary, Anti-Federalist and Anti-Democratic."

One thing that was brought up was that the political process should be allowed to take it's time and work out these issues, it's not as if gay people are being denied the right to vote or access to this political system. But that's where gays being a minority kinda puts a wrench in things. If we weren't a minority - we wouldn't need legal protection!

You often hear anecdotes about gay partners being prevented from seeing a sick or dying loved one in a hospital. I had a patient the other day whose partner of 22 years had died recently. His partner's brother had tried everything to keep him from being allowed to visit, and went so far as to sell the house the couple had lived in out from under this patient.

While I appreciate and applaud any straight person who takes "our" side. I usually just wish that any one opposed to gay marriage would have to spend one day in the shoes of someone like that patient.

Why So Few Gay Marriages?

While the study below looks at numbers of gay marriages in places where it's legal as a part of the number of gays in those areas, I can't help but believe the numbers would be much different if gay marriage were legalized nationwide.

As I wrote a long time ago, why should I have to move to a certain state or city or part of the country just to marry the woman I've been with for over eight years now?

That said, the second post linked right below seems pretty reasonable to me.

I know several of my readers are lesbians in long term relationships - any of you care to answer why you would or wouldn't get married?

There are two very well written, thought out posts over on The Volokh Conspiracy. The comments on the posts are worth reading as well.

Here's the reference to the original study:

Maggie Gallagher's Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, which opposes gay marriage, has just issued a new report finding that few gay couples are getting married in jurisdictions where gay marriage is permitted. Here's the summary of the findings from the report:

The highest estimate to date of the proportion of gays and lesbians who have married in any jurisdiction where it is available is 16.7% (Massachusetts). More typically, our survey of marriage statistics from various countries that legally recognize same-sex unions suggests that today between 1% and 5% of gays and lesbians have entered into a same-sex marriage. In the Netherlands, which has had same-sex marriage as a legal option for the longest period (over four years), between 2% and 6% of gays and lesbians have entered marriages.

Here are exerpts from The Volkh Conspiracy:

The answer, I think, depends on why we think marriage rates among gays might initially be low. Every gay person on this planet right now has lived almost her whole life without the prospect of ever marrying the person she loves. Most gay people in most parts of the world probably still think the prospects for this are very dim where they live, despite what’s happened in Europe, Canada, and Massachusetts. Relationships have been started, plans have been made, worldviews and political ideologies have been formed, based on the absence of marriage as an option. Suddenly, for a few people in a few isolated jurisdictions, marriage is now a possibility for the first time in their lives. While some gay couples can be expected to jump the broom right away, it's not surprising that many others will need more time to assess this new possibility.

This is so for several reasons. First, the idea of marriage is still novel in gay culture and among gay individuals. As the report suggests, "novelty" can produce excitement – but it can also produce fear, specifically fear of the unknown.

Second, without the social encouragement and support that marriage provides for relationship formation, there are probably relatively fewer long-term and stable gay couples to begin with, and thus relatively fewer couples who would immediately demand marriages. Those couples secure enough and invested enough in their relationships can start taking advantage of the option right away, if that’s what they want, and they're likely to be the first couples to get married. But for other couples, the availability of marriage means staying the course or embarking on a new one. As new relationships are formed under a regime of marriage, these couples will eventually reach the point where someone pops the question, “Will you marry me?” All of this suggests there will be an adjustment period of some duration while more marriage-inclined couples form and while marriage becomes a comfortable and normatively appealing option to them.

Third, reinforcing the fear of the unknown is the fact that many gay people have actually constructed an oppositional identity for themselves partly based on their exclusion from marriage. Excluded from marriage, they have made a virtue of necessity: "You won't let us marry? We don't want to get married anyway." This oppositional identity takes many forms in the writings of queer theorists and in the things even ordinary gay people can be heard to say when the subject of marriage arises. One hears expressions of this oppositional identity like, "We don't need marriage with all its patriarchal and heterosexist trappings." Or: "I don't want to mimic straight people." Or: "Marriage is such a mess, with 50% divorce rates, why would we want to join it?" Or: "Just give us the benefits of marriage and you can keep the word." There's a stubborn pride, born of necessity, in being on the outside of a group that won't let you in. Some people will retain this oppositional identity no matter how much time passes. But for others, primarily those younger people whose identities are formed in an environment where marriage is an option, oppositional identity of this sort should fade. Mainstreaming effects like this are what many queer theorists fear about the coming of gay marriage.

I doubt that marriage rates among gays will ever equal marriage rates among heterosexuals, primarily because gay couples will be less likely to raise children. Even after marriage culture settles in, straight couples will be most likely to get married, followed by lesbian couples (who are more likely to raise children than gay males), followed by gay-male couples. But a disparity in marriage rates among heterosexual and homosexual couples is not an argument in itself against recognizing same-sex marriages.

More Optimistic Than Me

Ace writes: But at the same time, that vote means 30% of the people voted NO to the constitutional amendment. Well gays certainly aren't 30% of the population, maybe 5%. Since it was a sensitive and personal issue, they may have come out to vote in higher numbers, so let's just estimate maybe 10% of the voters were gay. That means 20% of the people who didn't have dogs in the fight thought that the amendment was unnecesary. While it's no victory, I don't consider it a total loss. 10 years ago, the score would never have been 70/30.

That's a valid point. I do wonder what percentage of the actual voters were gay. I know the opposition to gay marriage is mobilized, funded, and determined. I wonder if the gay community in Missouri was any match.

But that's also my point on the whole issue - gays are a true minority, so the argument that all of this should be decided by voters doesn't really make sense to me. And it certainly doesn't hold up to the progress we've made in this country regarding minorities, you know, like letting women vote.

Frustrating Blow

Mediocre Law Student and I have been discussing the future of gay marriage, Bush and Kerry, and politics in the comments of a couple of posts on both our blogs. I've been saying that I'm not worried that the FMA will ever pass - all the requirements necessary to change the constitute are just too much for a measure that is opposed for many different legitimate reasons and doesn't hold broad support. So I've felt that the issue of gay marriage will be decided state by state.

Today my optimism got a frustrating blow.

Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday to ban gay marriage, the first such vote since the historic ruling in Massachusetts last year that legalized same-sex weddings there. The amendment had garnered 70 percent of the vote with 91 percent of precincts reporting.

Four states already have similar amendments.

One of the things I fear happening in this state by state battle is an even greater polarization between states. I'm not sure I know how to explain that.

I've also been saying that this issue isn't an urgent one to me. And maybe that's because I'm naive. I know the people pushing for the FMA and these changes to state constitutions are very well organized and extremely motivated. Maybe I'm underestimating that, because I know they are in the minority.

I've also written that Texas isn't a gay friendly state, which I sometimes lose sight of because Austin is so gay friendly. And I'd be pissed to have to move to a different state just to protect my relationship with Nerdstar and our kids when both of our extended families live here in Texas. How stupid is it that so many families would have to relocate just to protect that family?

I'd have to say the most frustrating thing is that because gays and lesbians really are a true minority, our lives are being severely impacted by the majority - straight people - making decisions about us. And yet, I also know most straight people are honestly just uninterested in the issue, not realizing what is really going on. Maybe that's where the gay community is failing. Maybe we should be running a very positive ad campaign against the FMA and all related things. Maybe we can't leave it up to the goodwill of straight people.

And while I still feel I have to support Bush over Kerry - I'll be voting on the gay marriage issue in state and local races, which for now is where it really matters.

Raining on the parade

Maybe it's my glass half empty mood, but I just can't get that excited about gay marriage in Mass. Nerdstar and I live way down here in the LoneStar state and kinda like it that way. I don't want to have to acquire a funny accent and deal with more snow in a few months than I've seen in my whole life just to make a legal woman of her. Even if Mass. is just the first dominoe to fall, it'll be a long, long time before Texas follows suit.

When our only dreams are for a couple of kids and a decent house it shouldn't require moving half way across the country just to make it all legal and legit.

Guess we'll see what developes in the next year while I'm waiting for her to come home and we figure out "what next".

Complicated

This news story talks about the legal and practical ramifications of the gay marriages in California and Oregon.

It gives me headaches just to think about it. So far Nerdstar and I haven't had to face any of these issues. The biggest change we've made in things is that all of our money is now in joint checking and savings accounts. (It'll be fun to work out spending style differences when she's back and has access to her money again!) Neither of us have a will yet, because we have no "real" property.

But I can't imagine how frustrated and pissed off we're going to be when she comes back from Iraq and we prusue our two biggest goals of buying a house and having a baby. It's not like those two events aren't huge and life changing and stressful enough. We'll have to jump thru god knows how many hoops and pay outrageous amounts of money in attorney's fees to try to protect our home and family when straight people can accomplish and gain so much more from a simple license and ceremony.

What makes it all piss me off that much more is that Nerdstar and I just celebrated our five year anniversary while both of our siblings' marriages of much sorter duration are both ending in divorce. Um, yeah, sanctity of marriage my ass.

Deep breath. End rant.

Cheers

How cool! An openly gay military man married his boyfriend in Canada while he was on leave.

Nerdstar and I talked about getting married while she was on leave and seeing how the army would handle it, but decided against it for so many reasons.

Cheers to Stewart and Schwehr. (found on Andrew's site.)

Not Done Yet

Even getting a massage today, as relaxing as that is, hasn't managed to totally eliminate my anger.

Many people have written and said that the president has so many more pressing issues, wtf is he doing making a point of opposing gay marriage in such an extreme manner. But more than that, when over 6000 people take the time and effort to stand in long lines in cold, rainy weather to get married, to affirm their relationship, to try to achieve some sense of normalcy and your reaction as president - and a president who's sold himself as a nice, compassionate man - is to say to those people you are a threat to this country that must be stopped in the most severe way possible. Every measure must be taken to make sure that not only are those weddings invalid, any future such marriage must be completely prevented in the strongest of terms.

THAT is just mean and wrong. I can't imagine holding myself up as a defender of freedom and liberty and the champion of oppressed people and then using all of my power as president to try to oppress people different than me. Evil is a strong word, and one President Bush likes to use, and I'm very close to saying he is an evil man. At best he is thoughtless and cruel if he is unaware at this late date the affects of his words on every gay person in this country, much less those who work for him.

And that's my other point. My Nerdstar is now employed by a man who openly seeks to marginalize her, discriminate against her. And she has no recourse. I wish every gay and lesbian soldier and government employee could stand up to their boss/commander in chief and say I refurse to work for you.

If you've read this site for any amount of time you know I have supported Bush and the military, thinking our efforts in Iraq and the world are worth the sacrifices made. Now I'm just pissed.

Pissed!

It's 11 p.m. and we're settled in after a good day of lovely facials, good food with a good friend, browsing at a bookstore, and now channel surfing.

In reading the blogosphere's reaction to Bush's stupid ass statements today I'm more sad than ever. It's not the reaction of the bloggers on my blogroll that bothers me, it's some of the fuckhead comments on their sites.

This is going to be a long ugly battle over gay marriage. Even if the ammendment process starts this year it could take several years to go thru congress and all fifty states. And I'm already tired of it. Did the civil rights era in this country teach us nothing? If equal doesn't mean equal in America, where the fuck in the world can it?

I don't use the word hypocrite much. Today Bush became the biggest hypocrite I can think of. How many speeches has he given about bringing freedom to Iraq and other parts of the world? Yet today, he clearly stated his desire and intent to deny basic freedoms to a minority population here.

As I've written before, my Nerdstar is one of the soldiers Bush is supposedly so supportive of, yet today he totally fucked us over.

I haven't changed my mind about voting for a democrat, but I sure as hell changed my mind today about voting for Bush, I won't do it. I will simply go to the polls on election day and write in NONE OF THE ABOVE! None of them have the balls to stand up for me and my Nerdstar, so none of them will get my vote.

I never thought I would or could become a gay rights activist. I am all about live and let live. Today it more clearly than ever became personal. I refuse to be classified as a second class citizen.

Damn Pandering

I caught a brief news blurb about Bush's newest attacks - and at this point it really has become an attack - on gays this morning. It deeply disappoints me, mostly because as I have said before, it is simply him pandering to the most extreme in the Republican party, which I don't believe is the majority. The ammendment will never pass, everyone knows this, so that makes his statements supporting it even worse. For there is no real gain to be made, just political posturing of the worst sort.

Andrew's reaction is stated much clearer, and probably stronger than mine, go read!!

Reality vs Theory

I've written enough about gay marriage as a political issue, but haven't really written about it personally. Would Nerdstar and I get married if we could? I know there are gay couples out there who don't want to get married even if it becomes legal.

We bought each other wedding bands the first year we were together. We were going to Vegas and I knew she was going to surprise me with a ring. (I'm hard to surprise!) I thought at least one of us should be surprised so I bought her a ring.

We've talked about getting married in the abstract because we never thought it would be an option. Mostly we joke around about just wanting a big bar-b-q and the gifts.

The following exerpts from our IM today give you a rather intimate look at our thoughts on this, and into our relationship. Nerdstar approved me posting this.

Whirlwind

Ace has several good posts about her thoughts on this whole gay marriage whirlwind that seems to be gathering. You can start with this entry and scroll down for more.

There's just so much I don't understand about all the legalities and possible legalities of what's going on. The most basic idea that I can't ever seem to wrap my head around the idea that Nerdstar and I are so fundamentally different from straight people that we must be a danger to society and must not be allowed to marry one another. Fuck that. In a country that's all about equality and civil rights I simply cannot fathom such a basic right being denied to a group of people. That's not to say I'm not familiar with the assinine arguments against gay marriage or why people spout them. I'm saying from a legal perspective, this type of discrimination in this day and age really is beyond me.

I know many people feel going thru the courts to achieve the right of gays to marry is the wrong way to go about it. I'm not sure I see an alternative. Unfortunately, I think it's going to be a long messy road.

Anyway, go read Ace!

Previous Post Continued

I truly believe gay marriage will be a reality. I also think it's going to take several years. A constitutional ammendment to ban gay marriage will never pass, so it's a mute point. While a lot of people are going to try to make this a big issue in the election this year - it just isn't. Public opinion has been slow to change regarding gays, but it is changing, and so is public policy. My right to get married really isn't up to whoever is president for the next four years. (I guess just how much power the president has over anything other than military/defense issues is a valid debate.) On the other hand, national safety and defense is very much in the hands of whoever is president.

The questions Lileks raises below are the only ones that need to be answered in the next four years. I think we're taking it amazingly for granted that there have been no more attacks on American soil since 9/11. As DenBeste wrote the other day:

Captain's log): Yesterday was Super-Sunday, the day the Superbowl was played. In some southern city somewhere, the top two teams in American football met and played the last game of the regular season, and one of them won it and became the champion. (For at least some people. which teams they were and which one was the victor was really important.)

Nope. The biggest story was the one we didn't read: "Terrorist attack causes 30,000 deaths". It is the deafening silence, the dog not barking in the night. For the third straight year since 9/11, a crowd the size of a small city concentrated itself in a stadium and sat for several hours to watch the most heavily televised live event of the year. And then that crowd dispersed and went home.

I just don't believe a democrat president will prevent terrorism from happening. And that's really the only issue to vote on in November. Because an even worse attack than 9/11 really renders all the other issues null and void.

Update 2/11

One of my commenters emailed and asked that I delete their comments from this post and the one just before it so they can remain anonymous. I can understand and respect that.

Once more

As usually happens, I finally decide to go to bed and try to get some sleep and my brain comes up with something decent to blog about.

I listened to the State of the Union tonight. I consider myself to be a conservative, leaning a lot towards liberterian. I've supported our endeavors in Iraq and the war on terror.

Naturally, I liked the parts of the speech where Bush talks about how those things are going, how proud he is of the soldiers and how much he supports them.

Later in the speech he feels the need to pander to the right that is farther right than me and say that marriage needs defending, just like he says freedom needs defending.

But he's defending marriage from some of the same people who are defending our freedom. People like my Nerdstar and I.

We're sacrificing almost two years of our lives being apart. And most days I feel that as long as she comes home safe and Iraq becomes a truly democratic place, then the sacrifice is ok with me.

But it really pisses me off that apparently we're not equal enough to get married.

I don't know who people think gay people are. But mostly, we're just like everyone else; soldiers, lovers, unemployed, friends, clerks, family, tech support, teachers, nurses.

I know, I'm mostly preaching to the choir, but it helps to articulate this stuff sometimes.

Gay Marrige part 2583

I actually started crying. I started crying because someone said it out loud. Someone said out loud that I'm equal. That I can choose whether or not I want to get to get married. That it's ok. That I can be in love. That the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should recognize my partnership the same way they recognize my neighbors. That it's not a morality issue. That it's an equal rights issue. I started crying because someone said.

For today it's ok.

Yeah, pretty much. With everything else on my mind this week, and knowing that this fight is long from over, I haven't let yesterday's rulling sink in. I haven't let myself start imagining a wedding day. It's too weird to think about. I never expected these changes in my lifetime. Not really. And for me, the bigger battle is still the one with my religion. Yes, it's huge that my country might finally recognize me as a first class citizen, but will my church ever stop seeing me as evil and deviant?

But this one simple ruling marks the beginning of the end of a deeply ingrained sense of shame for so many people.

Gay Marriage part 1854

If you're happy or pissed about yesterday's Mass. SC ruling, you really should be reading Andrew Sullivan. No one writes about this issue more succinctly or eloquently or plainly.

In talking with co-workers about this issue on occassion, what I find is that they honestly don't know all the obsticles and hassles people like Nerdstar and I face in simply trying to live life as a couple. It's nice when they start to get it. I wish Andrew could/would do the whole media circuit/circus thing and state our case.

It's a start

I have no idea what the ramifications of this are. Massachusetts' highest court ruled Tuesday that same-sex couples are legally entitled to wed under the state constitution, but stopped short of allowing marriage licenses to be issued to the couples who challenged the law. The court ruled 4-3, ordering the Legislature to come up with a solution within 180 days.

UPDATE: Instapundit has a lot more info.

Rant

Little Man and Ramen kept me up almost all night, damn pets. Little Man kept coming in and out the bedroom window and Ramen kept trying to chase him when he came in. I looked at the clock at least every hour all night long.

Anyway, the point is my brain is very, very tired today. I'm also having to sit at the front desk for three days because the lady who usually does it out. The worst part is having to talk to everyone who walks in the door in addition to answering the phones.

Ok, now the real point - thankfully, Michele has ripped this whole assinine Defense of Marriage week or whatever the hell it's being called. Jenna over at Dykewrite weighs in as well. Because I'm just so fed up with the whole mess I could just spit.

After the weekend Nerdstar and I had with her family, and all the issues surrounding the fact that we're not a "real couple" and all that shit. Then added to that the fact that if anything ever happened to her while she's with the military, again, we're not a legitimate couple, I would be lucky to be informed of anything happening to her, I certainly wouldn't be handed the flag at her funeral. And on and on and on and on.

This isn't an abstract for me. It affects almost every part of my life in ways subtle and not so subtle. And for some f*ckheads to think they need to protect society from ME pisses me off more than I can ever state.

And more...

What's so funny to me about all my posts about gay marriage and such is that I have NEVER wanted to be a gay activist. I'd much prefer to just live my life and have my sexuality not be a factor. I guess I had resigned myself to the way things are. Yes, having kids and buying a house, and making a will, and all those things are much more difficult being in a lesbian relationship, but oh well.

I guess it's that "light at the end of the tunnel" affect that's stirring me up. Now that it's looking more likely gay marriage will become a reality in my lifetime, my ideas are changing. The realization that damnit, my life doesn't have equal protection under the law and it damn well should is sinking in.

I know there are gays and lesbians that have been fighting the good fight for rights for decades. They have my utmost respect.

Don't get me wrong, none of this changes my politics to being liberal. It's really reinforcing my liberterian leanings - if they could just get their act together and find an electable candidate. I still don't want the democrats in my pockets any more than I want republicans in my bedroom.

And for all those people worried about the moral decay of this country - do you really think demonizing a rather small minority in this country is really going to slow that process down?? I won't bring up the Catholic church scandals, or the child abuse rates, divorce rates, crime rates, and on and on and on...

Once again

The whole big messy debate over gay marriage seems to just be getting started and I'm already sick of it. I am sick to death over fucked up comments like this one on Lucianne today:

Does anyone see the irony in a group of people the country looks to for cutting-edge cultural innovation in design, style, fashion, theater and the arts in general, suddenly shrieking for something as heavy duty as marriage. Perhaps someone straight should quietly explain how much work marriage really is and the potential for it to be dull and unfunny - things the gays have always recoiled against. Perhaps then they'll stop all the nonsense, tell their partners they love them and go back to writing really great musicals.

Can we get past the fucking stereotypes of gays as evvviiillll, sick, deviant, and alltogether lesser than straights.

For anyone still unclear on the concept:

GAY PEOPLE ARE JUST LIKE STRAIGHT PEOPLE.

Deal with it.

Because it appears to me that's the biggest hangup in this debate - that straight people somehow think that just by being gay that in and of itself makes us LESS. Our lives and relationships are not legitimate. And to that all I can ever say is Fuck You. I'll hold my relationship and life up with yours and we'll see how it all compares. In fact, in face of all the opposition to trying to live a "normal family life" it's stunning gays and lesbians manage to do it at all. And yet we do. And maybe that opposition is what makes the families we do form so strong. So don't talk to me about how "heavy duty" marriage is, and how dull and unfunny. Because after four years, I think I know that commitment of any kind is heavy duty, and can be dull and unfunny - but it's also worth the effort. Let alone that it should be MY decision to be dull and unfunny if I want to - not you telling me I can't.

Hmmm

Hillary Clinton on gay marriage:

Here's a transcript of a June 18 interview with Mrs. Clinton on the Brian Lehrer WNYC show in New York City:
"Lehrer: The lead story in the New York Times today is about Canada's decision to fully legalize gay marriage. Do you think the United States should do that?
Clinton: Well, obviously in our system it is unlikely ever to be a national decision. It is a state-by-state decision because of the way our federal system operates, where states define what the conditions for marriage, or domestic partnership, or civil union might be, so I don't think that we will ever face it. In fact there is a law on the books, passed before I was in Congress, the Defense of Marriage Act, which goes so far as to say that even if one state does it, other states under our full faith and credit clause of the constitution don't have to recognize it.
Lehrer: But is Canada setting a good example, one that you'd like to see spread through the states here?
Clinton: Well, I have long advocated domestic partnership laws and civil unions, to me...
Lehrer: That's different from marriage.
Clinton: Well, marriage means something different. You know, marriage has a meaning that I... I think should be kept as it historically has been, but I see no reason whatsoever why people in committed relationships can't have, you know, many of the same rights and the same, you know, respect for their unions that they are seeking and I would like to see that be more accepted than it is.
Lehrer: But not with the context of marriage.
Clinton: Yeah, I, I think that is, you know... First of all, I think that it is unlikely, if not impossible, to be something nationally accepted in our country, but I also think that we can realize the same results for many committed couples by urging that states and localities adopt civil union and domestic partnership laws."

You'd think the smartest, most powerful liberal woman could manage to sound just a little more supportive of gays. Apparently not. Then again, I can see why she wouldn't have such a favorable view of marriage at all.

Goodridge v Massachusetts

Arguments began today in Goodridge v. Massachusetts, the case that could impose gay marriage on Massachusetts, and eventually, to the entire country. Initial questioning by the justices indicated a uniform hostility to the state’s case. Legal experts are privately predicting victory for the plaintiffs. Get ready for a massive national battle over gay marriage, beginning this spring or summer. (found via The Corner)

I'm not at all very well informed on this case, just had heard it was going to trail. I'm sure if you do a Google search you can find more information than you want!

The topic of gay marriage is brought up every so often on the Dykewrite ring. Just from a practical perspective for Nerdstar and I, especially when we have kids, I'm all for some sort of legal arrangements that protect us and our children when it comes to financial and medical issues in particular.

taxes and gay marriage

I was trying to decide whether to sell some stocks I'm losing money on and use the loses against my taxes. So, I go to the IRS site, print up the tax form, the tax rates and all that good stuff. I get to looking at tax rates, fortunately this year I'm still poor so I'm only at 15%. Then, I look at the specific taxes owed for income levels for single, married, etc. This is where I got pissed. Nerdstar and I have shared a house and bills and everything else a married couple shares for almost four years now. (How long does the average marriage last??) Yet, combined we'll pay $600 more in taxes than a married couple just because it's illegal for us to get married. That's just bullshit!

The answer on the stocks was it would only be a $45 dollar difference in my tax return, so it's not worth the bother of selling. I'll just keep them and hope that in ten or so years they'll go back up!

Reading for you

So, since I might not be posting much until Sunday night or Monday morning, please go on over to The Light of Reason and do a bunch of reading. There are so many topics covered so very well.

He's got a great discussion of gay marriage - although most of the comments readers leave make me nauseous! Not being subject to it, I am usually forgetful of the amount of animosity and hate so many heterosexuals feel toward homosexuals. I'm a very live and let live kind of person, life is just much less stressful that way. So I simply can't understand why the hell straight people are so up in arms over gays wanting to marry. First of all, it wouldn't affect them one bit. And second, it would make gay relationships much more stable (I think) if marriage were sanctioned, and it would certainly make finances, kids, health care and everything else so much easier for gays. Again, without any cost to straights.

He's got an entry about the upcoming SCOTUS decision regarding Texas sodomy laws.

This entry about private collections of DNA samples is downright scary!

You get the picture - go read the site! It's a cold, cold weekend so you'll have plenty of time!