Why it matters: Gay Divorce

It's bad enough we don't have marriage protections.  But if a legal same-sex marriage breaks up, the consequences through divorce are just as bad--if not worse.

To give you an example of the Gay Divorce Tax , consider what happens when splitting a retirement account.  Eric and John are both 50 years old and are breaking up. As part of the divorce, they need to split a $500,000 401k that is in Eric’s name.  If they were straight, they could do QDRO (Qualified Domestic Relations Order) and relatively easily split the 401k in half. Both would end up with $250,000 each in a retirement account.  But the QDRO wouldn’t be available for Eric and John.  To pass the money from Eric to John, first they are subject to the Gay Divorce Tax.  

Eric would have to take a taxable withdrawal from his 401k.  The $250,000 would be subject to income taxes and penalties that  could be 33% or more. It could include a 10% premature distribution penalty, state income taxes of 9.3% in California, and it may be subject to gift taxes as well. If the divorcing couple proceeded this way, Eric could be hit with tax bill of $75,000 or more before even dealing with gift tax issues.  Also, keep in mind that the leftover money that John does receive will no longer be in a tax-deferred retirement account such as an IRA or 401k, and there  aren’t  options to quickly get large amounts back into tax deferred accounts. 

The Gay Divorce Tax is just one reason same-sex couples need to talk about divorce.

Why it matters: Houston judge says husband can't be with kids

This one's a doozy.

A Houston judge entered an order on June 24 which prohibits a father from leaving his children alone with any man they aren’t related to “by blood or adoption.” Because there was no allegation of abuse in the case, family law practitioners say the order is an unheard of infringement on the rights of parents and a judicial condemnation of the fact that the man, William Flowers, is not only gay but married to his partner, Jim Evans.

.... So if, for example, William wants to visit his mother in the hospital (where she’s been for several weeks), he can’t leave his kids at home with his husband. As written, the injunction also prohibits male doctors, teachers and pastors from being alone with the children.

Attorneys who practice family law in Texas point out that in cases of abuse, it is common for courts to prevent children from being alone with specific people. But those same lawyers say that they’ve never heard of a case in which a step-parent or long-term partner is permanently enjoined from being alone with his or her step-children when abuse is not even alleged, let alone proven. No lawyer consulted for this story has ever heard of an order which prohibits children from being left alone with an entire gender.

That's Texas, home of your would-be next president.

Seriously, this is so wrong on so many levels. Apparently, the judge has no problem with William, but assumes that any man around the kids must be a pedophile? Of course he wouldn't treat William's WIFE that way, if William were straight. Can you imagine him saying, "you can't leave your kids alone with any woman"?

I'm just so tired of this crap from the bigots, the haters, and the ignorant.

DIvorce rates higher when gay marriage banned

From the über-pollsters at FiveThirtyEight:

Over the past decade or so, divorce has gradually become more uncommon in the United States. Since 2003, however, the decline in divorce rates has been largely confined to states which have not passed a state constitutional ban on gay marriage. These states saw their divorce rates decrease by an average of 8 percent between 2003 and 2008. States which had passed a same-sex marriage ban as of January 1, 2008, however, saw their divorce rates rise by about 1 percent over the same period....

The differences are highly statistically significant. Nevertheless, they do not necessarily imply causation. The decision to ban same-sex marriage does not occur randomly throughout the states, but instead is strongly correlated with other factors, such as religiosity and political ideology, which we have made no attempt to account for. Nor do we know in which way the causal arrow might point. It could be that voters who have more marital problems of their own are more inclined to deny the right of marriage to same-sex couples.

There is, however, probably now enough data on this subject to engage in more sophisticated longitudinal studies on this subject (more sophisticated than I have engaged in here), which might produce more robust conclusions. Although only Massachusetts has affirmed gay marriage for any length of time, the difference between the states which have banned it constitutionally versus statutorily may be worth examining, as the former represents a significantly more confident assertion about the nature of state-sanctioned marriage. At the very least, I would be surprised if there were any statistical evidence that interpreting the right of marriage to apply to same-sex couples would be injurious to heterosexual couples in any material way.

When gay people marry: The Horror! The Horror!

Recently, a Chicago Trib writer asked a number of prominent opponents of marriage equality what is it is that they think will happen if gays marry.

At first, none of them answered, although after a while Maggie Gallagher dove in and said that, gasp, if same sex marriage is legalized, then children will learn about gays! And religious people will be persecuted! As Conor Clarke, writing at Andrew Sullivan's blog remarked,

Is this really the best they can do? First, none of these things are "simple, concrete predictions about measurable social indicators." ....Gallagher's list amounts to this: As support for gay marriage grows, the public institutions and sentiments that oppose gay marriage will become increasingly marginalized.

A new scholarly book recently published called When Gay People Get Married addresses the question with actual data. As the publisher's blurb reports,

The evidence shows both that marriage changes gay people more than gay people change marriage, and that it is the most liberal countries and states making the first move to recognize gay couples. In the end, Badgett compellingly shows that allowing gay couples to marry does not destroy the institution of marriage and that many gay couples do benefit, in expected as well as surprising ways, from the legal, social, and political rights that the institution offers.

That certainly agrees with my experience, being married, as I've previously reflected.
And what's happening here in the US? As discussed at Talk2Action (h/t Toujours Dan), Massachusetts still has the lowest divorce rate of any state (data here ). And where are the highest rate of divorce? There's a big cluster in the South, which corresponds very well with the Bible belt. Interestingly born-again Christians reportedly have some of the highest rates of divorce.

So actual data suggest that same sex marriage is good for gay people, does not negatively affect the marriages of straight people, and that those opposed to same sex marriage on faith grounds are no less likely, and may even be more likely, to divorce themselves.

One hopes these data will be used to rebut the lies for the upcoming Federal Prop8 case, and the lies being told in Maine in the run-up to their election.