Family Fairness

Same-Sex Marriage Comes to Washington D.C.

Brian Cavner — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:01:12 +0000

A bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Washington D.C. was signed into law by D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty in December last year. D.C., being a federal district, has its laws reviewed by Congress before they go into effect. The period of time Congress had to review the same-sex marriage legislation expired yesterday, and so today was the first day marriage licenses were issued to gay and lesbian couples.

Washington D.C. also permits voters to block legislation pending a referendum on the issue, but anything that violates the D.C. Human Rights Act is exempted from this policy. The United States Supreme Court decided today in a three-page ruling that the same-sex marriage law was covered by the Human Rights Act exemption. Therefore, the Court refused to grant the petitioners' request to stay the new legislation.

While the life of legal same-sex marriage in Washington D.C. is dependent on the eventual referendum vote, marriage licenses are now available to D.C. couples.

[Via The Associated Press]

Maryland Now Recognizes Out-of-State Same-Sex Marriages

Brian Cavner — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:15:51 +0000

Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler has announced that Maryland will immediately begin recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states. While this does not mean that Maryland same-sex couples will be able to wed in the state, it does mean that couples who are married in other jurisdictions — such as New England neighbors Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Vermont — will receive all of the state rights and privileges associated with marriage in Maryland.

New York's highest court reached a similar decision in late 2009.

CA Gubernatorial Candidate Meg Whitman on Same-Sex Rights

Brian Cavner — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:57:12 +0000

Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO and 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate in California, has been the subject of numerous recent headlines for her political ambitions in the nation's most populous state. California, still reeling from the effects of Proposition 8 that stopped the state from performing same-sex marriages, will be replacing current Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger vetoed the California legislature's attempts to enact same-sex marriage in the state, citing constitutional issues with the attempt, but also opposed Proposition 8.

Meg Whitman granted two interviews, one with Silicon Valley's Mercury News and one with the Los Angeles Times, to discuss her political positions. Describing her political lean as "moderate to conservative" on social issues, Whitman believes that same-sex couples should be permitted to enter into civil unions and adopt children, but that the word "marriage" should be restricted to opposite-sex couples. Whitman supported Proposition 8, calling it a "matter of personal conscience and my faith." Whitman stood out, however, for her belief that Proposition 8 should not apply retroactively, and that the same-sex marriages legally performed before Proposition 8 should still be recognized and valid in the state.

While Family Fairness takes no position on whether Whitman would be a worthy governor for the state of California, it believes that California voters — especially those who believe strongly in the rights of same-sex couples — should be informed about the candidates' stances toward the LGBT community. For more on Meg Whitman's political positions, consult her Meg Whitman for Governor homepage.

For Richer Or Poorer: Advice for Couples Planning on a Worry-Free Future

Brian Cavner — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:40:12 +0000

This is a guest post from Robert A. Dienelt, a Financial Advisor and Accredited Asset Management Specialist (AAMS) from Jackson, Mississippi. While Family Fairness usually discusses the legal side of family planning, Robert will be talking about financial considerations all couples should make before marrying, registering their civil union or domestic partnership, or using legal documents to grant their partners rights.

Every spousal financial relationship is unique. Through the years, couples develop their own systems for handling financial matters. Sometimes it is one partner's responsibility to manage all finances, sometimes the other's, and sometimes a combination. Whatever the situation, certain information should be shared.

Couples should consider mutual responsibility for and knowledge of:

Retirement plans: Take time to fully acquaint each other with employer retirement benefits. Both partners should have current knowledge of pension plans, 401(k) accounts, and IRAs. For a complete picture of expected retirement benefits, become familiar with each other's Social Security benefits as well. Understanding retirement benefit information will bring clarify and facilitate retirement planning.
Credit card documents: This one can be scary. Some may prefer to not know how much credit card debt their spouse has accumulated. But it's wise to know where to find account numbers in case one loses his or her wallet and needs the other to help cancel the card. Also, mutual awareness of credit card debt amounts will help with developing a family's overall financial plan.
Power of attorney: It is generally a good idea to have power of attorney on any individually owned assets, just in case one partner becomes ill or otherwise unavailable. Power of attorney can be limited to specific functions for a certain period, such as selling stocks or withdrawing money while traveling. A broad document that authorizes each partner to handle almost any situation in the other's absence is also a consideration.
Wills, trusts, and life insurance: It's especially important to share information about wills, trusts, and life insurance if either has been married before. There could be restrictions on how some assets may be used and beneficiaries left unchanged by mistake. Most important, make sure each partner knows where to find the will and can easily access it if something were to happen.
Health insurance policies: Most insurance companies will cover care administered in the first 24 to 48 hours of a medical emergency, even if the coverage details have not been sorted out. But the situation isn't as clear with hospital visits that are less urgent. If each partner is covered under a different insurance plan, both should be familiarized with the requirement "hoops" they may have to jump through. If one spouse had a sudden illness, would the other know which doctor to call first to get an okay for treatment? If not, they risk running up big bills at an out-of-network doctor.
Business loans: If one spouse owns a business or is a partner in a professional firm, both should know about any personally guaranteed loans. It is critical to be aware of liabilities since household assets can be hit if the business can't repay the loan.

While many don't necessarily need to know everything about their spouse's finances, maintaining a working knowledge of the above points can help maintain proper, balanced control over a family's financial affairs.

The Gay Tax: How the Estate Tax Marital Deduction Costs Same-Sex Couples $3.3 Million

Brian Cavner — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:12:21 +0000

The Williams Institute of UCLA School of Law has released a study [pdf] that shows that same-sex couples are assessed an average of $3.3 million more in taxes upon the death of their partner than a similarly situated opposite-sex couple. Because estate taxes are set federally, the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits even married same-sex couples from taking advantage of the marital deduction.

Says Michael D. Steinberger, the author of the study:

Even in 2010, when the estate tax is currently slated to be repealed, federal law allows different-sex married couples to shelter an additional $3 million in capital gains when a partner dies. Regardless of your views about this tax, it is a costly implication of legal discrimination against gay and lesbian couples.

The study also estimated that if the current laws are not changed, gay and lesbian couples will have lost more than $3.5 billion in the decade preceding 2011. Steinberger advises that: "As Congress turns to legislation in December to address the estate tax before it disappears in 2010, it should address these inequalities for same-sex couples and their families."

The cost to provide equal benefits to same-sex couples would be one twentieth of one percent (.05%) of the total federal government revenue.

The full study, Federal Estate Tax Disadvantages for Same-Sex Couples [pdf], is available at the Williams Institute website.

What Will the Affordable Health Care for America Act do for LGBT Families?

Brian Cavner — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:37:09 +0000

The House of Representatives yesterday passed the health reform bill, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, by a vote of 220-215. The Wall Street Journal reports the several key provisions of the bill including capping health insurance costs for low- and middle-income families, creating a program for individuals to find policies—including a government-run public option—disallowing insurance companies to drop coverage for pre-existing conditions, and requiring certain employers to provide more comprehensive coverage. The bill also includes a few provisions designed to help gay and lesbian individuals and their families.

The Human Rights Campaign has identified several important, new benefits for LGBT Americans. The two most key among them:

Unequal Taxation of Domestic Partner Benefits – the bill ends the unfair taxation of employer-provided domestic partner health benefits, incorporating the language of the Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act. Without this tax penalty, more people will be able to afford employer-provided coverage for their families, and more companies will be able to offer these important benefits.
Non-discrimination – the bill prohibits consideration of personal characteristics unrelated to the provision of health care. HRC worked with a coalition of civil rights groups to develop and lobby for this language and we believe it will help protect LGBT people from discrimination in the health care system, where there are currently no federal protections for our community.

The Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act addresses the problem that, although employer-provided health insurance coverage for spouses is tax exempt, domestic partners must pay income tax on the benefits they receive from their partner's employer. If the bill becomes law, domestic partners will no longer pay this additional, inequitable tax.

HRC further reports that the bill "designates LGBT people as a health disparities population" giving our community data collection and grant programs that focus on the health issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity. It also extends Medicaid coverage to early HIV treatment, and funds comprehensive sex education.

The future is uncertain, with the vote of the Senate still required on their version of the bill, approval of both chambers on a final, synthesized version, and President Obama's signature. While the President has indicated his intent to sign, and is "absolutely confident" that the bill will pass the Senate, according to CNN, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid remains uncertain, while Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut promises a filibuster of any bill containing a public option.

This Week in Gay News Roundup: 11/1 - 11/6

Brian Cavner — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:04:24 +0000

The week that brought us the one year anniversary of California's Proposition 8 and the passage of Maine's Proposition 1 was certainly not a celebratory one. Here is what happened this week in LGBT law in case you missed it. For for up-to-the-minute news stories, follow FamilyFairness on Twitter.

Proposition 1, the Maine bill allowing voters to overturn the legislature's earlier passage of marriage equality, passed with a margin of 53-47. Same-sex marriage was supposed to come to Maine on September 14 this year, but was put on hold pending the results of the veto vote. Maine was the fifth state to legalize gay marriage, and the first to successfully do so legislatively (California's legislature also twice passed a marriage bill that was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger).
On the same election day, voters in Washington affirmed the expanded domestic partnership law that had been passed earlier this year. Referendum 71, the voter initiative seeking to affirm legislatively expanded domestic partnerships, was approved on a margin of 52-48. Washington retains its "everything but the name" version of marriage.
Basic Rights Oregon announced that it was seeking to repeal the state's Constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 2012. The amendment has existed since 2004, and was passed in response to Oregon's Multnomah County movement to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples. 3,000 licenses were issued until a judge found no right to gay marriage under Oregon laws and invalidated them all. Oregon has had expanded domestic partnership laws since 2007.
A United States Department of Justice answered Massachusetts's petition to find the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional in that it deprives Massachusetts's married citizens of federal spousal benefits. While the DoJ agreed that DOMA was discriminatory and wanted it overturned, it said that "[t]here is, however, no fundamental right to marriage-based federal benefits." Massachusetts is the first state to issue a challenge to DOMA.
Tena Callahan, the Texas trial court judge who ruled that her state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional explained her ruling. In reference to popular support in Texas for keeping gay marriage illegal, Callahan said: "My dad always used to tell me that a billion people can believe in a bad idea, and it's still a bad idea. And that man taught me to have the courage of my convictions and to do what's right." Her opinion is expected to be overruled on appeal.

I hope voters in California, Maine, and any other state in which the people try to turn back civil equality remember Callahan's words.

The Evils of DOMA: COBRA and Health Care

Brian Cavner — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:31:28 +0000

I spoke yesterday about the importance of the word "marriage" and why it was impossible to fight for the rights without also fighting for the word. Many current federal programs and benefits only recognize married partners. While we do not yet know how the federal government will deal will civil unions and domestic partnerships following the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—the statute allowing the federal government to ignore same-sex spouses—it is unlikely that the federal definition of marriage will be expanded to include these other relationships. As a result, despite states like Oregon, Washington, and Nevada offering expanded domestic partnerships with all of the rights and responsibilities of marriage, only same-sex partners married under the laws of Massachusetts, ~~California~~, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, ~~Maine~~, or New Hampshire would actually have access to these federal programs.

COBRA is a federal law that allows workers who were laid off by an employer who staffs more than 20 employees to retain their health insurance benefits for themselves and for their spouses and children. Because of DOMA, COBRA does not currently apply to any same-sex couple. This means that the gays and lesbians among the current 30 million unemployed Americans are also being denied affordable healthcare for their families. The repeal of DOMA is necessary, but will still not suffice in the states in which same-sex couples have "won" the rights of marriage but not the word.

While I appreciate to some extent those who say they support civil equality for gays and lesbians but not the conveyance of the word marriage, they must understand that domestic partnerships cannot simulate all of the rights of marriage. Even with the assistance of an attorney and every legal document he could produce, same-sex couples can not be equal until they can marry.

California Proposition 8 Anniversary: Revisiting the (Bad) Arguments

Brian Cavner — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:31:37 +0000

The following is an editorial:

In the last year, we had some victories: marriage equality came to Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire, recognition came to Washington D.C., and Domestic Partnerships came to Nevada and were expanded in Washington. And then today, on the one year anniversary of California's Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment that took away same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian residents of Maine wake up with the news that Proposition 1 had passed and their marriage rights were revoked. The battle over Proposition 1 showed that opponents of marriage equality have not developed their arguments much since Proposition 8, but that, unfortunately, those arguments were still working. With that knowledge, I feel obligated to revisit some of the claims made in the debate surrounding same-sex marriage.

On November 18, two weeks after the passage of Proposition 8, The View featured a segment discussing the proposition and same-sex marriage generally. The show's two conservative members, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd, took the stance against same-sex marriage. The video is to the right. I have extracted some of the two ladies' arguments to address:

"...this is minimizing [the struggle for racial equality]. To equate what's going on—and now these protests—and those situations during the civil rights moviement; it just shouldn't even be happening. It minimizes all what occurred."

Civil equality is not a competition; the winners are not the ones that suffered the greatest. Discrimination and the denial of rights should be addressed and remedied whenever it occurs, not just when it is the greatest example of discrimination. To discredit the gay rights movement in this way is to discredit the American feminist movement because women in the Middle East have it worse.

Promoting same-sex marriage does nothing to minimize the black civil rights movement. Rather, it is a continuation and the next step in the fight to win social equality regardless of race, sex, or sexual orientation.

"They should be fighting for the rights rather than the word 'marriage'. There are a lot of people who are arguing there were four judges who decided what was best for the country all of a sudden. This Prop 8 came as a result of that. These protesters, in essence, are protesting what the majority wants."

The rights of marriage and the word 'marriage' itself are entangled. It is impossible to impart all of the rights without also providing the word. This is because the concept of marriage is one that, for the purposes of law, is recognized uniformly through each of the states in the country. Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships do not enjoy such ubiquity; a couple could not travel from Oregon to Nevada and have their relationship recognized even though both states have Domestic Partnerships. Even in states that provide comprehensive Domestic Partnerships, some benefits, like pension agreements, insurance policies, and other private offerings are available only to couples who are 'married'. So it is impossible to to fight for the rights without also fighting for the word.

Further, I believe it is a miscategorization to say that four judges decided what was best. The California Supreme Court did not make any value judgement on same-sex marriage; it simply held that the Equal Protections Clause of the California Constitution made the denial of marriage rights—a "basic civil right"—to a protected class unlawful. The ruling followed 4 years of procedural history and argumentation. To make it sound as if the judges woke up one morning and decided to judicially mandate marriage equality is misleading and dishonest.

The protestors were not protesting what the majority wanted; they were protesting the fact that a slim majority (52% of voters) could strip fundamental rights from a class of people in defiance of the state's three elected branches of government—executive, legislative, and judicial. They were protesting that the will of only 7 million voters in a state of 37 million could decide whether or not they were permitted to marry the person they love. They were protesting the frightening precedent that voters could decide civil rights. To characterize the protesters "in essence" as anti-democratic sore losers is an demeans their message.

"There are some people who go 'because I can, I want to have my dream wedding in a Church and you're saying 'no', so I might sue you because you're discriminating against me' And so you're impeding on their rights and their beliefs."

Gay and lesbian rights are no threat to religious freedom.

"If you're voting yes on Prop 8, then all of a sudden, you're a bigot."

Bigot is not a nice word, and it does not feel good to be called one. But if you did vote yes on Proposition 8, you chose to jealously keep a right that you enjoy from a group of people. It does not matter what your reasons are, because the outcome is the same. People who once could marry their partners are once again legally prohibited from doing so. Your marriage was not affected for better or worse as a result of your vote. The only thing that changed is that we could no longer have ours. You may claim no animus, but you can not strip away a right from a group of people while gaining nothing for yourself and call the action anything but malicious. You may not feel like a bigot, but your vote was one a bigot would cast. Love is not a limited commodity to be hoarded.

Brazilian Man Denied Ability to Live with US Partner

Brian Cavner — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:12:21 +0000

Family Fairness discussed in March how same-sex couples were hurt by anti-gay immigration policies. Because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a gay or lesbian United States citizen is unable to sponsor his or her partner for residency. Hope was on the horizon in May, when the Senate held a hearing on the Uniting American Families Act, a bill designed to give committed same-sex couples the ability to reside together in the country.

Unfortunately, the wheels of progress turn slowly. Last week, a Brazilian man was denied asylum to live in the United States with his Massachusetts partner, despite the couple's Massachusetts marriage license and co-ownership of a home. Because same-sex partners are not eligible for automatic citizenship when one partner is a US citizen, the couple was required to file a special asylum application. Rather than respond to their request, US Attorney General Eric Holder ignored it. The application has now lapsed, and the couple's request effectively denied.

The couple plans to initiate a legal challenge to DOMA for its violation of immigration and humanitarian laws. However, they have already spent approximately $250,000 in legal bills over the course of their forced separation, which has lasted more than two years. Until the passage of the Uniting American Families Act or the repeal of DOMA, this story will repeat. Couples should not be denied their basic human right to be together simply because of the sex of their partner. Shame on Attorney General Holder for dragging his feet on this important issue.