The cost$ of being gay

The NY Times did a study to calculate how much it costs to be gay. Literally--given the disadvantages in tax benefits, pensions, etc.

It was much more complicated than we initially imagined, and that’s probably why we’ve never seen similar efforts. We looked at benefits that routinely go to married heterosexual couples but not to gay couples, like certain Social Security payments. We plotted out the cost of health insurance for couples whose employers don’t offer it to domestic partners. Even tax preparation can cost more, since gay couples have to file two sets of returns. Still, many couples may come out ahead in one area: they owe less in income taxes because they’re not hit with the so-called marriage penalty.....

Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.....

Nearly all the extra costs that gay couples face would be erased if the federal government legalized same-sex marriage.

Boot camp: campaign organizing 101 (video Sunday)

There was a boot camp in grassroots campaign organizing held in LA a few weeks back, by a new group called Outwest Coalition. Its purpose is to train and empower community activists for the cause of equality.

Check out this video about the event, and feel inspired!

It's not the same thing: marriage and DPs

I'm glad that Washington appears to have saved domestic partnerships--though the margin is agonizingly close. But the closeness of that race is proof that this battle is not about a word. It's not about marriage. It's about ANY recognition of same sex couples.

So why does the word itself matter? next time someone says that in a post-Prop8 world, marriage and DPs in CA are the same, remind them that it's just not true. Some differences are listed here: Marriage versus domestic partnership in CA.

These include a big one, that legal status and rights are not portable out of state. And even with protections, as we've seen rights may be denied IN state. Tax benefits, retirement, leave and other benefits are absent. There are no immigration protections, and other differences in how they are treated compared to marriage including common residency name change, and privacy. Interestingly marriages are not state-recorded or easily searchable. But DPs are. whazzup with that?

And let's also remember that, as shown in Washington and Wisconsin, even benefits from civil unions are under attack by the haters. As Andrew Sullivan wrote recently

it doesn't matter what equality is called - civil unions, domestic partnerships, civil partnerships, or civil marriage - the GOP believes in no rights for gay couples whatsoever.

As a recent Op/Ed in Maine wrote,

There is virtually no way to surgically carve out and tie together all the rights and responsibilities of marriage in a legal relationship that does what marriage does without calling it marriage......

Families led by same-sex partners are here now. They are part of our communities and they need and deserve the legal protections -- as well as the dignity -- that comes with civil marriage status.

It's not about marriage. It never was. It's about bigotry.

Who's a Cafeteria Catholic, then?

The phrase "Cafeteria Catholic" is a disparaging term that is generally applied to liberal American Catholics who ignore Church teaching on birth control, sex, and divorce. The general theme behind it is that good Catholics adhere consistently to ALL the Church's teachings, unswayed by cultural whims.

Or do they? This excellent article from Religion Dispatches argues that the Cafeteria Catholics are actually the conservatives, who ignore the Church's traditional liberal views towards the poor, health care, capital punishment, and immigration reform.

Catholic bishops in this country have shown that they are only willing to speak out politically in support of deeply conservative causes associated with the culture wars (i.e., abortion and same-sex relationships). They are not willing to stand up for the liberal principles that have shaped the Church’s official teaching and the work of its theologians. In other words, the bishops are picking and choosing at the cafeteria of Church teaching and behaving like right-wing political ideologues.....

.....

While the New Jersey bishops offer their theological musings on the importance of marriage and the need to defend it, we need to ask them to prove to us why heterosexual marriage needs to be defended against same-sex marriage. First, sacramental and civil marriage have been distinguished by the church for centuries, and civil marriages that do not comply with sacramental marriages have never been seen as a risk to Catholic marriages. Second, if heterosexual marriage is threatened when same-sex marriages are allowed, why do Massachusetts and Connecticut have the lowest divorce rates in the United States? These are two of the states that allow gay marriage, and marriages there (both same-sex and otherwise) seem to the most stable in the country.

The Catholic bishops in New Jersey and in the rest of this country have decided to align themselves with right-wing politics. The bishops in Washington DC recently launched a campaign similar to the one now being waged by their counterparts in New Jersey. This stance by the bishops goes against the tradition of American Catholicism and suggests that Catholics should decide their positions on social issues based on their political alliances and not their core principles. While conservative Catholic leaders have bemoaned “cafeteria” approaches to Catholicism, they are now prime examples of this behavior.

David Mixner speaks out again

From David Mixner:

Call this campaign against us what it is - Gay Apartheid.

Refuse to allow any of our fellow Americans, President Obama or our allies to view this as a political issue who time hasn't quite come. America is in the process of creating a system of Gay Apartheid. We will not quietly sit and accept it. All over the place, this nation is creating one set of laws for LGBT Americans and another set for all other Americans. That is the classic definition of Apartheid. Either our political allies are for Gay Apartheid or against it. If they are against it, they must fight with us and no longer duck like President Obama did in Maine and Washington. There is no half way in fighting Apartheid.

Today many will claim that we must surrender the word marriage or accept some sort of separate but equal arrangement. It didn't work in the African-American struggle for freedom and it doesn't work for us. We want full equality with the same rights, benefits and privileges as all other Americans now. We say to those friends, allies and even in our own community who want to accept that second class citizenship, "Oh No You Don't!" We will accept no compromises, time-lines, incremental approaches with our freedom. Don't counsel patience as if this is a new issue. We have been fighting these ballot box bigots for over three decades. Enough.

Third, it is clear that the political establishment in Washington doesn't understand that we no longer willing to wait until it meets their timetable or political needs.

President Obama standing on the sidelines in Maine and Washington was appalling. The failure of our national organizations and leaders to demand his involvement was equally appalling. .... If you want our support, you have to earn it. We are way beyond where we will accept a little bit in 2009, some in 2010 and maybe more in the second term. Does anyone think after yesterday election results and the upcoming 2010 election, Obama has the ability to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and "DOMA" next year? Does anyone really believe we haven't already missed a historic opportunity in the first 10 months of this year? Only a courageous fighting President and Congress can now help turn us this around and that we have not seen so far. Enough.

Aftermath

NO ONE should put the rights of a minority to the ballot. They will always lose. NO CIVIL RIGHTS BATTLES ARE WON AT THE BALLOT BOX. It's outrageous that we have to beg our fellow citizens for citizenship. And they aren't going to give it to us now, any more than the majority would have voted to end slavery, to give women the vote, to give African-Americans full civil rights, or to allow mixed race marriage.

We did not vote on any of those issues. Why is MY citizenship up to the ballot? Why are gay people uniquely required to be approved by a majority vote?

Not all traditions are worth keeping.

Dear Maine, 2

Dear Maine,
You can't say I didn't warn you, back in May, what to expect if you put the rights of your GLBT citizens to the popular vote.

The lies, the ignorance, and the divisiveness happened just as I predicted. The haters told vicious lies, and they won.

I know just how your GLBT citizens, their friends, and their families feel this morning. Because we still feel that way.

And as I told you before, you have deeply injured your community. People don't just "get over" being told they are second class, that their families are not worth protecting and that their love is meaningless. People don't just move on from the insults and the bile. Now, every interaction is tinged with doubt: did this person vote against me? Does this person hate me?

Workplaces will be on edge. Civic interactions will suffer. Churches will be split. There will be deep, deep hurt.

Maine, you have torn the heart out of many people. And that damage will linger for a long, long time.

I'm so sorry you did this. But you can't say you didn't see it coming.

Sadly,
California.

From Wockner: "Gay marriage was a winner in the cities of Portland (73%), South Portland (64%) and Bangor (54%), and in places such as Kennebunkport (61%) and Bar Harbor (73%). It lost in the cities of Lewiston (40%) and Augusta (47%)."

We lost, again

48% of Maine voters believe in fairness and equality. 52% believe in ignorance and bigotry.

We've seen this before. As shown by Gallup, not until 1991 did a plurality of Americans approve of inter-racial marriages. Indeed, one might argue that the landmark Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision of 1968 sped it up, and even then, the electorate only caught up with the law 30 years later.

So I should wait 30 years? Demographics suggest in 30 years I have a reasonable chance of being dead. In the meantime I remain a very angry, frustrated, second class semi-citizen.

David Mixner speaks out

Read the whole thing.

Tonight once again we will be forced to sit on the edge of our seats as the voters of Maine get to chose whether we get to be a free people in their state. The concept that a majority of voters in any state can decide if I shall have the same rights of all Americans is repugnant to me. We won't know the results until late in the evening, but there is one result that is overwhelmingly clear to LGBT citizens and their allies: President Obama and his team were zero help in this critical battle and in the last week might actually have hurt us. That is a fact.

Despite repeated pleas for assistance from this community from the start of the campaign, he chose to ignore every opportunity to grant us such relief. At the recent Human Rights Campaign dinner he never said the word "Maine" once. The most we were able to get out of the White House office of communications was that he was opposed to such efforts. Try weaving that into a powerful ad or robo-calling!

However, practicing benign neglect was not the end of it. This past week, Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States in the state of Maine said that this administration had no position on the ballot measure. Read that sentence again carefully. Our nation's chief law enforcement officer and the president's hand picked choice said that the issue was just not that important to this administration! Now don't be fooled by any rhetoric that presidents don't take stands on such issues. Going back as far as President Carter when he opposed Proposition Six, they have taken such stands.

The fierce advocate of whenever and the DNC have pedalled as fast as they can away from GLBT rights. But you know what? Just as in the public option in health care, the American public is much smarter than they think. Real life is not limited by an inside-the-beltway news focus. We know that Obama is ditching GLBT rights. The battle is up to us at the local level. And my wallet, I'm afraid, is going to be directed to fund those fighting local battles for us, battles that make a difference to our lives, rather than high-falutin' flowery speeches that blow away in the wind. Words are cheap.

Meanwhile, Maine turnout is bigger than expected....

what it's really all about

From Rex Wockner:

The bottom-bottom line, of course, is that this really is not about marriage. If they thought they could get away with it, the folks who funded this "people's veto" campaign in Maine would take much more away from gays than just marriage. In Washington state on Tuesday, they'll try to take away domestic-partnership rights. In California, they're all freaked out that the Governator signed the Harvey Milk Day bill into law. It's not just that they don't want us to get married. If they could completely invisiblize us and take away all our rights, some of them would do it.

Awesome Op/Ed from Maine

Read the whole thing:

While this change in the law could seem abrupt to some Maine voters, it reflects the way people are really living now in cities and towns all over our state. That's why we urge people to vote "no," to allow this reasonable law to go into effect.

..... Limiting marriage to a man and a woman would not make families led by same-sex couples go away. It would just keep them in a legally inferior position that is inconsistent with Maine's tradition of equal protection under the law.

Gay men and women already live together, own property and have children, both biological and adopted. They hold responsible jobs, they volunteer in churches and schools -- they are full members of our communities. The only thing they cannot do is form the legal partnership that gives them the advantages and duties that other couples have when they start families. The same-sex couples are not the only losers. This also puts their children at a disadvantage.

.... A "yes" vote won't make those couples go away. It would only make their lives more difficult.

..... There is virtually no way to surgically carve out and tie together all the rights and responsibilities of marriage in a legal relationship that does what marriage does without calling it marriage......

Families led by same-sex partners are here now. They are part of our communities and they need and deserve the legal protections -- as well as the dignity -- that comes with civil marriage status.

Maine voters should recognize that even if their personal beliefs about marriage haven't changed, reality has. They should accept reality and vote "no" on Question 1.

Hat tip Susan Russell

Leader of anti-equality campaign in Maine admits lying

It's not about the children. It never was. They are LYING and they even admit they are LYING.

In an interview tonight on Maine Public Broadcasting Network, Mutty not only admitted that, contrary to what his campaign has been alleging, there won't be a mandate to teach same-sex marriage in schools, he went further. Mutty admitted that his side has misled the people of Maine:

"We've never said that schools will be mandated- or, actually, perhaps we did in one ad, or certainly led people to believe that, inadvertently," says Yes on 1's Chairman Marc Mutty.

"Inadvertently." Wink, wink.

The election is close and it's all up to GOTV. Can you help? If you are anywhere in New England, can you get to Maine? If you are anywhere else, can you donate for the last ad buy, or make calls?

This is not about saving families, religious rights, or children. It's about bigotry pure and simple and that's ALL it's about.

Maine: the final ad

Do all Maine children deserve equal protections, or not? Vote No on one.

Truth and Hope: another ad from Maine (Video Sunday)

Marriage in Maine, and elsewhere

A moving Op/Ed

Love, monogamy, commitment, integrity and morality are family values offered by the No on 1 campaign. To be around any couple (gay, straight, or lesbian) who advocates for loving, life-long, married commitment, can only enhance my life, my 20-year marriage, and our daughters' lives.

It is a privilege for me and my family to know other couples (gay, straight, or lesbian) who are committed to married life and who raise their children with integrity, love and compassion. I encourage all Mainers to have a tender heart toward gay and lesbian neighbors.

The bottom line is: No on 1 is advocating for committed marriages as a means to express the depth of loving relationships, and that is a beautiful and worthy aspiration for all human beings.

The writer, a faithful Catholic, has been removed from her role as a Eucharistic minister for daring to support civil (NOT religious) marriage equality. And meanwhile the Diocese of Maine is closing even more churches, as it donates money and lies to the anti-equality campaign.

"Why did I fight in Normandy?"

TEstimony from Maine, an 86 year old veteren.
Q: Do you believe in equality for GLBT people?
A: What do you think I fought for on Omaha Beach?

My wife and I did not raise four sons with the idea that three of them would have a certain set of rights, but our gay child would be left out. We raised them all to be hard-working, proud, and loyal Americans and they all did good. I think it's too bad [inaudible] want to get married, they should be able to. Everybody's supposed to be equal in equality in this country. Let gay people have the right to marry. Thank you.

Exposing the lies in Maine

The Science of Gaydar

What makes us gay? It seems pretty clear that it's quite hard wired in most gay men. Lesbians, and women generally, have more fluid sexuality. There's an interesting piece in New York magazine about the science behind sexual preference.

One provocative question: if you know a child were gay, would it be ethical to abort it? Or to genetically manipulate it into heterosexuality?

This all goes back to a post I made some time ago about what it is to be different: I called it "Curing the Variant". When is a difference a "normal" variation and when is it a pathology?

Another No on Question 1 ad (Video Sunday)

Anthem

By the artist Christopher Dallman, an Anthem sample here, available on iTunes:

Me and my love have spent some seven years
building this home that we've made
Still our love is second class
Our Union is still renegade

How long?
Brother of mine, it's a matter of time
How long?
This is love

Hat Tip Madpriest