Darkside Rainbow

I only remember three dates on a regular basis: payday, my birthday, and the day that income taxes are due. Payday isn’t for another ten days, my birthday’s today, and income tax filings are due in a week. Guess which one’s the most prominent on my mind?

Unfortunately, it’s not where I’ll be having martinis tonight with a select group of friends (translated: the smallest number of people that I, as an antisocial cynic, can get away with). The due date is seven days away and I’m still sorting out the 1099s from my various freelance writing gigs, working out how much I owe the government in self-employment taxes, and stubbornly refusing to write out a check to H&R Block so they can tell me that I have to write out a much bigger check to good ol’ Uncle Sam.

I’m also remembering last year, when I knew exactly how the couples mentioned in this 365gay.com article felt:

(Washington) Gay and lesbian families pay higher federal income tax than their opposite-sex married counterparts. Once again the Internal Revenue Service is warning tax preparers, businesses and state governments that same-sex couples legally married in Massachusetts, who have had civil unions in New jersey, Connecticut or Vermont, or who are registered as domestic partners in states such as California must file separate income tax forms. [...] “Each tax season, same-sex couples sit at their dining room tables and are forced to live a legal lie by checking single despite their decades together - arbitrarily dividing up their joint households income, expenses, and dependents,” said Molly McKay, a spokesperson for Marriage Equality, a group that represents gay families.

At this time last year I was engaged to be married to the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. And as I checked off that ’single’ box on my tax forms I couldn’t help wondering: what’s the point? What’s the point of marrying him when for the rest of my life I’ll probably be lying and checking off that ’single’ box anyway because the U.S. government won’t ever recognize our union? What’s the point of any of this when sometimes, all it amounts to is a self-delusional farce that lets us play at legitimacy?

I know, I know. The point would be to marry him because I loved him. Love. Hell, I still loved him when I dumped him a couple of weeks ago. And although we’ve figured out that our relationship really cannot work…if gay marriage became legal at the federal level tomorrow, I’d marry his butt (and the rest of him) in a heartbeat, to have and to hold, ’till death do us part. Simply on principle.

Simply to stake my claim as something other than a second-class citizen.

One of the simultaneous safeguards and pitfalls of U.S. law is that federal law trumps state law almost every time. In this case federal laws are telling us that even in states where the people have voted to finally acknowledge our right to legal unions, the government will override the will of those people and tell gay couples that their union doesn’t really exist outside their state’s borders. The government is sticking their heads in the sand, saying “we refuse to see this”. And then they’re shoving our heads in the sand whether we want them to be there or not, and trying to convince us that the dark little patch of grit filling our eyes is the only place where we’re legitimate, while the rest of the beach just doesn’t acknowledge us - even if the rest of the beach is welcoming us with open arms.

All right, the analogy’s getting a little out of hand. The point is…last I checked, the phrase was “for the people, by the people” (and let’s not forget “with liberty and justice for all“). So what gives the IRS the right to completely veto decisions made by the people to give married gay couples the same rights and benefits as married straight couples? Oh, right, I forgot. That lovely little flag they love to wave around, the Federal Defense of Marriage Act. Thank you, Mr. President, for signing that one into life and providing a way to circumvent Full Faith and Credit.

As much fun as it is to point the accusatory finger at George W. for everything these days, responsibility for that one lies on Clinton’s shoulders. Dubya’s just responsible for being a hell of a lot louder in his drum-pounding for the - wait for it, wait for it - protection of the sanctity of marriage. If he keeps forging on the way he is, he’ll be responsible for a hell of a lot more, like his precious Federal Marriage Amendment.

When all else fails, abuse presidential power and try to amend the Constitution to suit your personal bigotry. Ah, the fun of being president: not only do you get to have shiny toys, your shiny toys let you take away other people’s shiny toys whether it’s fair, just, or right.

…that sentence used the phrase “shiny toys” far too much.

Over the decades, but increasingly over the past two presidential terms, a key fact has been forgotten: Dubya’s role, and that of all presidents, is not just that of a leader. It’s that of a public servant - and whether our current president and the jackals at the IRS wants to admit it, every member of the GBLTQ community is a member of the general public just like any other.

Serve us. Not yourself.

Serve not only the people who put you in office, but the people who keep you there with their levied taxes.

Don’t punish us for being who we are. Don’t reward others for discriminating against us.

Remember your place, President Bush.

And serve us.

gay marriage, irs, taxes, civil unions, gay rights, gay and lesbian couples, tax benefits, defense of marriage act, full faith and credit, federal marriage amendment