What People Are Saying
Kate Kendall
Sandy and I do our very best to raise our kids to live with integrity, power in the world and openness to what is possible. The core values we try to instill in Julian and Ariana are compromised every time we deny who Sandy and I are to each other and every time we diminish what we mean to each other. We will no longer participate in the government’s erasure of our relationship and our marriage. We want our kids to grow up with the courage to step out and step up, even if it is difficult or risky. For us, refusing to lie on our taxes is a straightforward, and pretty minor way to demonstrate that courage ourselves.
As a lawyer and a legal advocate for the LGBT community, I am often in a position to advise people to exercise great caution and to comply in most cases with the letter of the law, even when that means denying who we are. This is my small way of saying, where we can, we are not going to play the game anymore.
I love this idea and I loved Nadine's interview on Same Sex Sunday. I loved the idea of questioning other aspects of equality, such as health benefits!
I came out about 2.5 years ago, at age 31, strangely enough during the Prop 8 crap here in California. Living at a straight person, I always thought I'd get married and be able to be family and have protections legally. Then I came out to myself and others and got slapped in the face by Prop 8 and by the inequalities that I was now living with. I'm not in a long term relationship at the moment, but I'm at the point in my life where I want to settle down. Fortunately, I live in California, where so much is recognized, where we have so many protections, but it scares me that those protections don't exist in other states.
Petra Lee
A good cause. Kudos on the web site and your efforts to right an unconscionable wrong.
We heard your campaign mentioned on NPR this morning.
My spouse and I married 35 years ago as an opposite sex couple, and remain married after my later gender reassignment, so we're now effectively in a same sex marriage. Or, are we? It usually depends upon who answers the question.
Anyway, we've been filing a joint federal return all these years without any questions from the IRS. It was only recently, when I turned 65 and received my Medicare card, that it became clear why our tax returns hadn't caused a fuss--somehow my social security account still showed my former gender even though the name had been changed on it. Well, both my social security account and Medicare card have been corrected, but now we're unsure how the IRS will treat our joint tax return.
It's long past time for our government (at all levels) to cease inspecting our crotches, our bedrooms and our partners.
Carmelita
We have been together 32 years and continue to wait for our country to recognize our relationship as legally valid. Time is long past for this to change.
Lorenzo Ruiz & Kenneth Benson
Folks should be able to be legally married with all the benefits that mixed marriages (straight) have.
I was married to 2 men, did not work out then spent 33 years married to a most wonderful woman. I am now 65, not in good health and live in a nursing home. The laws will change just not as soon as they should. I am a Quaker and our Meeting marries same sex couples.
Madaline Muir
I believe that in order for there to be change, we do need to, "stick our necks out." And, at times it is dangerous, but like anything worth having, equality and ending discrimination, we/the person need to put our actions where our mouths are.
I am a mother of two great people, a son and a daughter, he is gay, she is lesbian, and belive it or not, their father is bi.
OK, so I'm in the fight for the above targets, ending discrimination and to obtain equal treatment for all of us, so that my childrens' lives and the lives of other people are better, richer and have more opportunities.
Two and a half years ago I started a NFP, with one of the priorities being the above, I have participated in marches, protests, in educating and learning more about the laws and people that promote homophobia and discrimination, so that I can then let others know and learn/teach how we can stop them from hurting us and/or out loved ones. As to how I feel, now at the age of 62, I feel great, proud and powerful!!
Lupe
Guadalupe M. Avery
I legally married my spouse in Connecticut Dec 23, 2008. The several states set marriage law. The state determines whether a marriage has has met legal statutes. DOMA section 3 TRAMPLES the rights of the People.
Amendment 9 Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10. Powers of States and people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
We have lived together for over 33 years. Yet we are treated as 3rd class citizens, but they, the government, want our money. Federal Court cases have been decided that discrimination was blatant & DOMA is unconstitutional. Save marriage by not accepting ADULTERY as just another thing. Save marriage by having marriage as a SACRED thing again. Children are not objects to be fought over! Same sex marriage has been in force in the Netherlands for 10 YEARS and marriage there hasn't fallen apart. So many countries are socially ahead of the US wand we don't know it.
JOHN TYLER
To put it simply... it is not right nor is it fair.
My partner works for the federal government, at this point in time she is not allowed to put my name on anything other then an emergency contact. Therefore I am not entitled to any of her benefits. This is sad. We are human beings. We should be entitled to the same rights afforded to the "straight community" period. There needs to be equality for all...
Valarie Evans
For this country to recognize marriages performed by some religions and not by others or by secular authorities is against the spirit and probably the law of our Constitution.
And then there's the harm done to couples and families who do not have the right to visit their loved ones in the ICU, to pick up their own children from school, or if it comes to that, to have rights to shared property or to even see their children in the case of divorce.
It's against some people's beliefs of what is right? Well, so is going to war but our country still does that.
I hope many couples decide not to lie because of this. You have thousands of fellow citizens behind you.
I want this for my friends (many of whom have been married longer than either of my heterosexual marriages have lasted), strangers and even my enemies. I want to see my colleague have a legal marriage before he and his husband adopt their child. I want my middle-aged friends to not have to worry about whether they'll be allowed to sit by their partner's deathbed.
I've felt this way since I was a teenaged devout Catholic, and I'm far from the only "mainstream" Christian I know to believe same-sex marriage is sacred.
Beth Chandler
Reverend Joseph Shore-Goss
Every year, Mike and I figure what our tax liability would be if we were able to file jointly, and it ends up pissing us off every year when we see how much more we are having to pay because we are required to file single. This whole "Marriage Penality" that you hear people talking about is B.S. We've payed hundrends to thousands more each year than we should have to...for the last 20 years!
