Florida Agenda

By NADINE SMITH

It’s tax season, and once again gay married couples are caught between the truth and the law.

Each year, the federal government demands thousands of gay married couples sign an IRS Form 1040 with this stern warning. “Under penalties of perjury, I declare that I have examined this return and accompanying schedules and statements, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, they are true and complete.”

But how do you answer in good conscience when the IRS tells you to lie? The IRS, citing the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), demands gay couples deny our husbands and wives, and indicate our marital status as “single.”

The IRS makes this demand despite the fact numerous courts have found DOMA to be unconstitutional, and the Department of Justice has stopped defending its key provisions.

Those of us who are married should be able to indicate our marital status honestly when filling out our tax return.

Currently, there are more than 1,000 legal protections afforded to heterosexuals that are considered inapplicable to the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) community. Many of these significantly impact finances (real estate, inheritance and health coverage, to name a few), but it is each year, on April 15, that all gay married couples come face to face with the inequities and indignity of having our families denied.

As more and more gay people get legally married in the U.S. or abroad, many married gay couples throughout the country are refusing to identify as “single.” Quietly, from California to New York, from Alaska to Florida, couples are refusing to deny their spouses and are willing to take the risks of entering legally murky territory to take a stand.

A website called RefuseToLie.org has become a gathering place for gay couples to share their stories and for others to speak out in solidarity. While many post they have chosen to file as married, the site also provides tax tips for those who wish to protest but don’t want to risk running afoul of the IRS.

Research shows gay people, on average, pay nearly $500,000 more over a lifetime due to discriminatory laws and practices. A recent CNNMoney study concluded same-sex couples are paying as much as $6,000 more in annual federal income taxes than other married couples, even in states that recognize their unions.

For example, married couples filing jointly who sell a home can exclude from taxation up to $500,000 of the income received. Gay couples are only allowed to exclude $250,000, the same as single filers.

Given these disparities, legalized bigotry has certainly cost many gay families the home they dream of in a safer neighborhood, a college education for their children, or the start-up money for a business.

My wife and I will once again file as married. We got married in Vermont, surrounded by 80 of our friends and family at the Burlington Quaker Meeting House. We committed, in front of our loved ones and duly authorized representatives of the state of Vermont, to love, cherish, and protect each other for the rest of our lives. It would be both dishonest and deeply humiliating to now disavow each other of our marriage and declare ourselves single on our tax form.

We have an 11-month-old son, and we know it is our actions that will teach him more than just our words. How can we raise him to be honest and have integrity in his interactions with other people if we fill out a form that denies our existence as a family?

Nadine Smith is the executive director of Equality Florida.

She can be reached at Nadine@eqfl.org.

Floridians still celebrating the end of the anti-gay adoption ban can hail another huge victory for gay parents and their children.

On Dec. 23, 2011, Florida’s 5th Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that the state of Florida must recognize the parental rights of two lesbian moms, one the biological mother who contributed the egg and the other who was the birth mother.

The ruling comes as the result of a bitter custody battle between the couple, who had been together for 11 years. They planned the pregnancy, gave the child their hyphenated last names, and together raised their daughter for over two years. When the relationship ended and the custody negotiations turned sour, the birth mother claimed sole parental rights to the couple’s daughter.

The appeals court decision overturns an earlier trial court decision. The trial court concluded that the law supported the birth mother, to the exclusion of the biological mother, and ruled in her favor even though they found her actions “morally reprehensible.” In issuing the ruling that deprived the biological mother of her parental rights, the trial court judge said, “It breaks my heart, but this is the law.” He concluded by saying, if his decision was appealed, “I hope I’m wrong.”

Not only did the Fifth Circuit Court reverse the judge’s decision by ruling that both women are legal parents to the child, but it also went further and found that the U.S. and Florida constitutions trump Florida law. It found unconstitutional a Florida statute (742.14), which denied the parental rights of an egg or sperm donor, as applied by the trial court, saying, “Interpretation and application of this statute by the trial court to deny Appellant parental rights to her child cannot withstand strict scrutiny and violates Appellant’s constitutional rights to equal protection and privacy under the United States and Florida Constitutions.”

This case is a victory for children, and the most recent in a succession of legal recognitions for gay couples: from the president’s order that hospitals treat gay couples precisely as married couples, to the striking down of Florida’s 33-year-old anti-gay adoption ban, to the dramatic shift in public opinion in favor of full legal rights for gay families.

The majority of Floridians, like the majority of Americans, believe gay couples and their children ought to have full legal protections. In this most recent case the court correctly put the best interest of the child first, one judge stating:

In my view it would be wrong to deprive the child of the benefits — emotional, monetary and supportive — of the relationship to which that child should be entitled with both the appellant and the appellee. Both of the adult women in this case are parents to [the child] in the real sense of the term. I think that we need to find a way to redirect our focus in cases of this kind so that best interests becomes part of the decisional matrix.

This court decision has wide-ranging implications, as the court’s logic in deciding this case should apply to all children with two parents, regardless of a biological connection.

Nadine Smith

Nadine Smith is the executive director of Equality Florida. She can be reached at Nadine@eqfl.org.

Response to Murky IRS Laws for Legally Married Gay Couples

By Alex Vaughn

The Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) not only denies legally married gay couples the 1138 legal protections and benefits of marriage, but the IRS also uses DOMA as a justification for telling couples to disavow their spouses.

A new grassroots campaign called “Refuse to Lie” has been launched to assist legally married gay couples who plan to ignore the government’s requirement that they lie on their taxes by filing as “single.”

“Refuse to Lie is a grassroots campaign that aims to make visible the impossible choice gay married couples have in choosing between the truth and the law,” said Nadine Smith, one of the organizers and the executive director of Equality Florida.

“As long as we quietly comply, our friends, neighbors, families and co-workers have no idea what is being done to us in their name,” said Smith. “As long as we are silent, they won’t understand how humiliating, dehumanizing and plain wrong it is to force legally married couples who are gay to lie and deny our spouses.”

On the website for the campaign, Smith illustrates her story with her partner Andrea, whom she married in Vermont, saying in response to the IRS asking couples to claim to be single, “It would be both dishonest and deeply humiliating to now disavow each other or our marriage and declare ourselves single on our tax form.” She continued saying “We are expecting a son this spring. What will we teach him? Should we raise him to be honest and have integrity in his dealings with other people, but show him that his mothers tell lies that make a mockery of our family when required to do so by the government?”

The risks of taking this stand are unclear and the rules murky. DOMA has been deemed unconstitutional by two trial courts and those decisions are being appealed. Recently, President Obama and the US Department of Justice announced that they, too, found portions of DOMA unconstitutional and would no longer defend the discriminatory law.

Nina E. Olson is the United States Taxpayer Advocate and is tasked with helping taxpayers solve their problems with the Internal Revenue Service. She is the only IRS employee authorized to make legislative proposals directly to Congress. In her annual report to Congress, Olson identified the confusion over legal filing requirements for gay couples as a major problem.

“The IRS has not provided answers to these questions, requiring many taxpayers to file returns without knowing which rules apply and potentially subjecting them to audits and penalties, as well as costs for tax advice.”

According Olsen’s report to Congress, the populations of individuals in same-gender marriages and domestic partnerships were 63,658 and 174,760, respectively, in 2008, when only three states authorized same-gender marriages and ten recognized domestic partnerships. Nationwide, more than a million individuals are estimated to be living as same-gender couples (whether or not registered), over 20 percent of whom are raising children.

In addition to highlighting this injustice, the Refuse to Lie campaign provides resources on what other couples might face if they to “refuse to lie” on their tax returns. The campaign also provides an opportunity for individuals and gay or straight married couples to sign a petition and stand in solidarity with those who are risking their freedom to demand their equality.

Visit www.RefuseToLie.org to sign the petition and learn more.

Nadine Smith, Executive Director  of Equality Florida
Photo courtesy, Nadine Smith

(Photo: Courtesy of Women for Equality Hosted by Equality Florida, photo by Vanessa Brito)

Obama issues Father’s Day Proclamation Acknowledging Gay fathers; DOJ Honors LGBT Employees

By Dmitry Rashnitsov

Equality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith and Deputy Director Stratton Pollitzer will be in attendance at Tuesday June 22^nd’s White House reception celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month.

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama invited LGBT leaders from across the nation with a focus on state organizers and youth activists.

Equality Florida leaders took part in a briefing on LGBT Equality and used the occasion to draw attention to Florida’s anti-gay adoption law- the only state with such a law in the country. An appeals court decision, expected any day, will determine whether Florida’s law is unconstitutional or whether plaintiff Martin Gill’s adopted sons will be taken away from him. The President included recognition of gay Dads in his Father’s Day proclamation.

“We intend to bring a picture of Martin Gill’s children standing in front of the White House during the Easter Egg Roll and ask President Obama to help us end the adoption ban that tears families apart and to do it before these bans become a state-by-state ballot measures,” said Smith.

Equality Florida is the largest civil rights organization dedicated to securing full equality for Florida’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

President Obama has declared June “LGBT Pride Month,” issuing a proclamation urging Americans to “renew our commitment to the struggle for equal rights for LGBT Americans and ending prejudice and injustice wherever it exists.”

“Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a stepfather, a grandfather, or caring guardian,” Obama said on father’s day.

A recent study published in the latest issue of the Journal of GLBT Family Studies, showed that gay fathers were more likely to leave their jobs in order to focus on parenting their children. The study examined 40 gay dad couples who received their child through surrogacy. Another difference was that gay fathers also saw their self-esteem and relationships with their extended families greatly improve when they had children. The average age of the men in the study was 41 years old with an annual household income of $270,000.

Religious and anti-gay groups were quick to react to President Obama’s proclamation.

“It is wrong to force children into a situation where they have two men modeling immoral behavior — condemned by God and all major religions — as the most important role models in their lives,” said Peter LaBarbera from Americans for Truth about Homosexuality.

Another one of the guests that was at the White House on Tuesday was Constance McMillan, the 18-year-old high school graduate from Mississippi who was not allowed to bring her girlfriend to her prom.

Even the Department of Justice is getting into the pride filled mood. Attorney General Eric Holder recently held an event honoring all LGBT employees.

“We have much to celebrate today. In the year since we last gathered, our nation – and the Justice Department – have taken steps to address some of the unique challenges faced by members of our country’s LGBT community,” said Holder in remarks at the annual DOJ LGBT Pride Month event.

DOJ Pride was founded in 1994, and flourished when Miami’s own favorite lesbian Janet Reno was Attorney General.

For more information about Equality Florida’s involvement in the White House event, visit: www.eqfl.org.