Gay rights mean different things to different generations of community
Before there were domestic-partnership registries and commitment ceremonies, before same-sex marriages and civil unions — before the gay-rights movement, even — John McCluskey and Rudy Henry met, fell in love and harbored the notion that they could spend their lives making one another happy.
And for 50 years, the Tacoma men went about doing just that, all the while longing for social acceptance.
Even in gay-friendly San Francisco where they first lived together, they found it necessary to hide their relationship from prospective landlords, and on job applications they would sometimes lie about their marital status to avoid raising suspicion.
Decades later in 2006, at a coffee-shop concert on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, Amy Balliett and Jessica Trejo met and they, too, eventually fell in love.
In their 20s, the two had come out as lesbians at a time when young people could find support in groups on high school and college campuses, when they had gay role models in politics and on television, and when their parents probably knew people who were openly gay. By the time the two married in California last October, legal bonds between gays and lesbians were possible in several states.
Balliett and Trejo, Henry and McCluskey are like generational bookends to this modern gay-rights movement, launched 40 years ago this week after a group of activists at a small Manhattan bar called the Stonewall Inn stood up in violent protest to ongoing police harassment.
While older gays and younger ones share much the same agenda of equality, their needs within the movement are also divergent.
Young people, who have at times referred to their own post-gay movement, seek the protections of marriage equality as they form relationships and start families, while gays of their grandparents’ generation are more concerned about issues of aging — like survivor benefits and long-term care.
See Gay rights mean different things to different generations of community
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And the Gay Tax is? $1820 per year
NPR contributor Nancy Goldstein has calculated the “gay tax” — the amount gay couples must spend to receive the same services that married heterosexual couples can count on everyday. In a column, she writes:
The cost of love isn’t an abstract concept in my household: It’s precisely $1,820 per year. That’s the “gay tax” we shell out for me to be on my wife’s health insurance plan, because her company must treat that benefit as additional taxable income.
Goldstein adds that “The media’s primary focus on the morality debate around same-sex marriage means that most of the public, gay or straight, knows little about the very real economic costs of inequality.”
The largest costs of marriage inequality also tend to be the easiest to quantify: Social Security survivor benefits denied, joint tax returns not filed, and many, many other cost savings that most married couples probably don’t even think about.
It’s this side of the gay marriage debate that has led the normally middle-of-the-road financial guru Suze Orman to wade into the debate. See And the Gay Tax is? $1820 per year WalletPop * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Questions Remain Over Same-Sex Marriage Bill
CONCORD, N.H. — A day after the New Hampshire House passed a bill approving same-sex marriage in the state, questions remain about the impact the law would have on the Granite State.
Extended Video: Gov. Lynch On Gay Marriage Bill Decision
Once the bill reaches Gov. John Lynch’s desk, he has five days to decide what to do with it. Lynch hasn’t given an indication what his plans are.
State Rep. Jim Splaine, D-Portsmouth, the author of both the civil union law and the same-sex marriage bill, conceded that currently there is little difference between the two in the eyes of the federal government.
“Any state which has same-gendered couples under civil unions cannot qualify for the 1,100 or so benefits of federal law,” Splaine said.
Those benefits range from survivor benefits to joint tax filings. But Splaine said he hopes that if the federal government considers the recognition of marriage between same-sex couples, New Hampshire will have made an important preemptive move.
“Very much so, and I think by adopting civil marriages and religious marriages, it encourages the federal government to make that move,” Splaine said.
But there is still considerable concern for some regarding the language of the bill. Under the religious marriage section, it protects churches and clergy members who choose not to perform the ceremony. See Questions Remain Over Same-Sex Marriage Bill
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