Family Pride’s Blog

Below is an excerpt written by Garrison Keillor, author and host of the hit radio show A Prairie Home Companion, in a piece titled The Land of the Free and Home of the Berries:

I favor marriage between people whose body parts are not similar. I’m sorry, but same-sex marriage seems timid, an attempt to save on wardrobe and accessories. Marrying somebody from your team. Still, it’s probably good for them to have to fight for the right to marry. My parents eloped against strong opposition from both families and they were in love for the rest of their lives and held hands and were tender on into their eighties. Of course they always had fresh strawberries.”

It is particularly upsetting to see high-profile individuals using and abusing their power to spread homophobic messages. The love I feel for my same-sex partner is no more motivated by savings on clothes and accessories than the love shared by opposite-sex couples is motivated by social security survivor benefits. Love is about commitment, care, honesty and the desire to share your life experience.

As Keillor mentions, the struggle for marriage equality will make us stronger people. But character development does not justify the obstacles we face or the rights that we are denied. When my partner was rushed to the hospital and I was denied admittance because our relationship wasn’t recognized, character development was not a consolation prize. Knowing that I’m a more perseverant person doesn’t make me feel any better that I cannot adopt in the state of Florida simply because I’m gay.

Comments like Keillor’s remind us of the importance of visibility. We must be visible, we must tell our stories and we must stand together as a community united. We must insist that our families and relationships are valued just as much as any other.

Our last post in the Best of Queercents week is by Rich Taylor.

I wrote a few weeks ago in “Separate But Equal” that it’s harder, I think, for gay couples to know when and how to merge their lives (especially finances) without being able to get formally married - except in Massachussetts!

Well this weekend Rob and I took the plunge. It was during a conversation about another couple he knows, a married couple back in Scranton struggling with power and trust issues. This couple continues to maintain separate checking accounts a year after being married. They both work, but she is supposed to pay “her own” bills while he pays for the house he owned before they got married.

I said to Rob, I don’t ever want us to fight about that. And Rob said he had been thinking it was time for us to really combine everything: bills, family obligations, everything. That was kind of it: a quiet agreement, and hey, what else is on TV?

A few days later we sat down in our study with a few 3 x 5 index cards and wrote out (separately at first) our individual financial goals, both short-term and long-term. (This is a tip I got from Money magazine a few months ago). Then we compared notes, and found we had a lot of overlap. Short term: to pay off all the cars, student loans, and one remaining credit card in the next three years. Longer term: we both wanted some kind of vacation home, and to own our own business, say in the next ten years. On top of that we’d like to give significant financial help to my niece to get through college, starting in 5 years, and to both our sets of parents just to help them in their old age.

It was really good to find we had so much in common in terms of our future goals, and that we were both willing to budget and plan to make it happen. Well, Rob was willing for me to do the budgeting. So I pulled out the trusty Quicken software, and permanently added all of Rob’s assets, loans, and bills to the program. It now shows combined assets, combined debts, all our monthly bills, and a joined up net worth.

To be honest I still feel a little bit of trepidation. Having been on my own so long, it’s quite a change to now be in a partnership: what’s mine is his, what’s his is mine. I know it’s not legal or anything, although we can register for a civil partnership in NJ. The difference is really psychological and emotional. We have agreed to be responsible for each other, to provide for each other, and to make long term plans together. Here I am 37 years old and it’s the first time in my life I can say that.

Where can I get a ring?

Our third blog in the Best of Queercents week is by Nina Smith.

About a year ago, I started reading an anonymous family finance blog called Tired but happy. At first, I thought it was written by a gay woman because she referred to her significant other using the word partner. I’m always wrong when I jump to conclusions. Over time, I learned that her partner was a man and they are raising a son together. I’ve always been fascinated by their decision not to marry so I recently asked if she would write a guest post about money and matrimony. These are her words…

Although we have been in a committed heterosexual relationship for over five years, my partner and I have chosen not to get married. For us, this is a choice. For many, marriage is not even an option. We object to marriage for many reasons.

I am uncomfortable with the religious overtones of marriage, and with the public spectacle and extravagance of most of today’s weddings. My partner objects to the state’s involvement in personal relationships, and feels that what should be basic human rights, such as access to health care, are awarded and withheld unfairly based on marital status.

We both feel that being “husband and wife” would make it harder to maintain our commitment to an anti-sexist family structure. And, for us, refusing to marry is a statement of solidarity with LGBT folks, who are denied the right to marry. We feel a responsibility to make this statement, although we can imagine circumstances (such as risking losing access to health care if one of us is terminally ill) that would override this.

This was not an easy decision, and it is a decision that we revisit regularly. At different times, we have both felt ambivalent about marriage, and doubted that we were taking the right approach. Our LGBT friends and family have also reacted in a variety of ways to our unmarried status. Some of our gay friends have said they don’t feel that it helps them for us to remain unmarried. Some have been happy that we’ve chosen to be allies in this way. One close friend, a biological woman in a relationship with a trans woman, told me that she didn’t think she could bring herself to be friends with a straight couple who was married, unless they were forced to marry to obtain citizenship.

In many ways, being a woman unmarried to my male partner is similar to being part of a same sex unmarried relationship. Legally and financially, we face many of the same challenges. But our situation is different, and I would argue that it is easier, in some key ways.

Here’s what we have in common with same sex couples.

Workplace partner benefits are a huge issue. Like many LGBT couples, our freedom to change jobs, and therefore our ability to grow in our careers, is severely limited by the ways some employers exclude us from necessary benefits like heath insurance. Ironically, my employer denies my partner health insurance because we’re a so-called straight couple. If we were same sex partners, he would be covered, but because he’s a man and I’m a woman, he’s not covered unless we’re married. On the other hand, three years ago we were fortunate that my partner’s employer changed its health insurance policy to include all unmarried couples, gay and straight.

Taxes are more complicated for us than for married couples. In our case, it actually benefits us at tax time to be unmarried. Because the IRS considers me a single mother, I qualify for many tax credits I wouldn’t be eligible for if we filed together.

We can’t afford to die. Since we’re unmarried, we don’t have that special exemption from inheritance taxes that married spouses have. That means if I kick the bucket, my grieving partner (who is also dealing with being suddenly a single father) will have to produce cancelled checks and other proofs to show that he paid for half of our house and related expenses. Otherwise, he’ll get taxed on the ENTIRE value of the house when I die. If he proves he paid for half of it, he has nine months to pay taxes on my half of the value. Oh, and all other money, including insurance payouts, that he inherits from me? He’s taxed on that too. Then there’s the fact that he wouldn’t be able to collect Social Security survivor benefits (although our son would get monthly checks until he’s 18). That’s why we own way more life insurance than a married couple with a similar income would need.

We can’t afford to break up. There are no divorce courts for unmarried partners. If we have an acrimonious breakup, all custody disputes related to our son are handled in family court. But if we need legal intervention to untangle other aspects of our relationship, we wouldn’t be in family court like our married-but-divorcing counterparts. We’d be in the regular courts, which are more expensive and take longer. Also, if we split up, we can’t simply sell the house and split the proceeds. The amount of money that could change hands between us would be limited by the cap on tax-free gifts, which is currently $12,000 annually. So I couldn’t write a check to my partner for more than $12,000 without getting slapped with a gift tax. It would be mighty hard to disentangle years of combined finances and assets without more than 12K changing hands in any given year.

But there are a few ways in which our situation is different from that of same sex couples.

We are not the targets of bigotry and hatred. My family might think I’m going to hell, and pity my son because he’s a “bastard”. My neighbors and friends might find our choices confusing, or even downright wrong. But I’m not receiving death threats. I can travel freely in the United States and abroad without fearing for my safety. The level of phobia and hatred toward LGBT folks far, far exceeds any of the disapproval and judgement we experience as a straight unmarried couple. With that said, here are the less significant ways our experiences differ from LGBT couples.

We both have equal rights as parents of our son. When our son was only hours old, we were given paperwork in the hospital with which to legally declare paternity. A slick brochure encouraged me to name my baby’s daddy, which studies had shown would help our child “stay in school and avoid crime”. A couple of signatures, and it was done. My son had two legal parents, and we had all the attending rights and responsibilities. There was no second-parent adoption necessary, no testimonials from friends and relatives to prove our fitness to become parents. It is getting easier for LGBT folks to become parents, but many, many people still struggle to have the right to raise children.

We could find ourselves married accidentally. We live in a common law state. If we don’t take measures to avoid fulfilling the criteria of common law spouses, we could wake up one day and find out that we’re legally married whether we like it or not.

We have the privilege of choosing whether to come out as unmarried. Unlike your average LGBT couple, we can pass for a traditional family if we choose to do so. That means we are constantly making the choice: In this situation, right now, am I going to exercise my privilege, and just let this person think we’re a “normal” straight, married couple with one child? Or am I going to take the opportunity to expose this person to the idea that there is something inherently unfair about the system of marriage?

At first, I almost always chose to confront people who assumed we were married or asked us when the big day was. “We’re not getting married until my mom and her [female] partner can get married,” I’d snarl. When I reacted too strongly, it was because I was taking out my anger at the whole system on folks who simply made the wrong assumption about my marital status.

These days, I don’t always have the energy to make a ruckus. And I’ve realized it’s not always the best strategy. I think it’s more constructive for people (especially people who haven’t been exposed to the idea of voluntarily abstaining from marriage) to see me as a happy person, a good parent, and a loving companion to my partner. If I’ve got a big chip on my shoulder, I’m not going to be able to instill a positive image of so-called alternative families. My goal is to plant seeds of doubt about the unequal, sexist, and heterosexist system of marriage, but that’s a slow, gradual process. Yelling isn’t going to make it happen any faster.

Luckily, there are a lot of resources out there for LGBT couples and unmarried straight couples. I lurk on the Alternatives to Marriage Project listserv. I recently read (and reviewed) Garrett and Neiman’s excellent book, Money without matrimony. I continue to think and write about being unmarried, and would welcome an ongoing dialog with readers about how unmarried straight allies of LGBT folks can work to change a system where marriage comes with a long list of privileges that are not available to everyone.

Family Pride is thrilled to partner with Queercents, bringing our readers a full week of Queercents “guest bloggers.” Due to the long weekend, we’re starting the week off early with a powerful posting by John Montesdeoca.

It’s a strange coincidence that I had to serve jury duty on Valentine’s Day. As I was sitting through the jury selection process, listening to people try to weasel their way out of their civic duty, I kept having this nagging annoyance of unspecified origin. I had never served on a jury before, and I was sort of excited to participate in the process despite the bad timing for me to be away from work. But something was upsetting me, and I couldn’t figure out what until the eighth or ninth potential juror gave background information about her spouse and children.

It became apparent that I was the only partnered gay person in the jury pool. I’m in a courtroom, looking at the American flag, a judge, a court reporter, attorneys, a defendant, the whole justice system in process, and I’m the only person in the room who cannot legally marry my partner because of our federal laws.

Although we haven’t made a formal commitment yet, Zac and I consider each other as family. The time for a ceremony will come at some point after Zac finishes graduate school, and when we figure out where we will call home. The reality before us is that we can’t settle down wherever we please. We are both working very hard to make a good life for each other, and thus we want our union to be met with the same legal privileges, protections and benefits extended to heterosexual couples.

It’s not a matter of “we want what they have” It’s a matter of dignity.

As a good citizen, I showed up for jury duty, and as it turns out, I will be a juror for a trial. However, I’m doing my civic duty for this country even though my country treats my relationship with Zac as separate and unequal to heterosexual relationships.

Zac dedicates much of his time to his work. He could easily be doing something else with his life and enjoying his youth instead of enduring a grueling Ph.D. program at Berkeley. However, he’s an incredibly smart and talented man, and he’s putting everything he has right now into what will be a rewarding career in the future.

I, on the other hand, work so much to save money for my dream of owning a business that when I left the jury assembly room to enjoy my free day from the office, I had no idea what to do because I hardly have any spare time anymore.

All that Zac and I work for, and all that we share as we build a life together, means nothing really in the eyes of the law because we are not a union of one man and one woman. If something were to happen to either one of us, we would be denied hospital visitation rights or family leave from work. When the time comes to deal with the issue of inheritance, we’d find that one of us would have to pay significant estate taxes, unlike married couples. There would also be up to 70% taxes and penalties on inherited retirement savings. We wouldn’t even be entitled to Social Security or pension plan benefits.

If my tone sounds a bit angry, it’s because I am. I cannot comprehend how LGBT couples are denied the right to marry when Section 1 of the 14th Amendment of our Constitution expressly states:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

We don’t want to be restricted to the few states that allow civil unions, or to head to Massachusetts by default because that’s where we can get married. When Zac finishes school, he’ll get job offers that could end up relocating us anywhere. It’s not fair that Zac would have to turn down an amazing job just because we couldn’t have same-sex union protections in that state.

It’s not fair that we can’t even settle down near our respective families because as of now, New York and Michigan have no same-sex union protections.

Civil unions and Massachusetts may be the best we have right now, but how are they not separate and unequal? Zac and I can only move to a handful of states in this country, and this is what we call freedom! This is “equal protection of the laws”?

It was a beautiful Valentine’s Day that Zac and I had together nonetheless. I looked at him from across the dinner table and felt like the richest and happiest man in the world. In no way could I understand how our love could not be worthy of the title of marriage. I’d give up my life to protect this man from harm. Married people can make sure all they have worked for provides for the one they leave behind. With our federal laws, I can’t easily do that for Zac, nor can most LGBT couples. This is the truth I have to swallow and leave out of mind when I go back to serve on jury duty. I get to deliver justice to others when there’s none for me.

This November the fundamentalist right got a wake up call - the people of this country are tired of the politics of hate. Whether a majority of Americans are on the side of marriage equality in this moment or not, they do realize that attack politics are unhelpful as this nation moves forward into the 21st century.

We saw this realization in Arizona, where for the first time the marriage equality movement was successful in beating back a state marriage amendment. And where we were not successful, we did make inroads into the hearts and minds of American voters. The numbers in support of marriage bans and amendments dwindle each time the fundamentalist right uses marriage as a divide and conquer tactic for political gain. People are catching on and they’re learning about LGBTQ people and our families. The road ahead will not be smooth, but it will lead us to a definite place - marriage equality for all.

Under the stewardship of Evan Wolfson, executive director for Freedom to Marry, Family Pride and other organizations have mapped out a strategy to win the fight for marriage. It’s called 2020 Vision. It’s a deadline-driven approach.

2020 Vision begins with the idea that to achieve marriage equality nationwide we have to set a date for that victory and work backwards to see what needs to be done. Imagine that marriage equality is possible by the year 2020, then define the work that needs to happen in the next thirteen years. That’s what 2020 Vision does. Here’s what it looks like - by 2020:

10 states must enact full marriage equality;
10 states must create and recognize civil unions;
10 states must create some form of domestic partnerships; (and)
20 states must show “climate change,” or positive shifts in policies affecting LGBTQ people.

2020 works because it understands that all efforts towards LGBTQ equality positively affect the fight for marriage. Some states are more likely to pass full marriage in the next thirteen years than others. But if we can pass legislation prohibiting anti-LGBTQ bullying in the schools of one of our most conservative states and change the minds of voters on LGBTQ issues in another, we’re still moving forward with marriage equality for all.

If we realize the goals of 2020 Vision, in that same year at least 80% of the country will have stood up for partner equality of some kind and 100% will have made their states more welcoming places for LGBTQ people and their families. Our base of support for federal action on marriage equality will be unavoidable. The winds of change will be strong and clear.

LGBTQ parents are key to the fight for marriage. Whether you desire the right to marry or not, you understand the need for LGBTQ people to have access to one of the most culturally valued institutions in this country. You also understand that no other legal arrangement currently offers the same kinds and numbers of rights and protections for families as marriage. As LGBTQ parents, you have access to non-LGBTQ people in unique ways. The conversations you can have with other parents - at your child(ren)’s school, on the job, at the playground - will make the need for marriage equality real for the vast majority of voters in this country - non-LGBTQ people.

Family Pride wants to help you do your part to make marriage equality - full family equality - a reality for all loving families. If you haven’t already, sign up on our e-mail list. We’ll periodically provide updates on the movement and where we’re headed. We’ll let you know when to take action. We’ll give you resources to take make change every day. We’ll keep you informed.