Showing posts with label the LGBT rights movement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the LGBT rights movement. Show all posts
Law prof. Art Leonard summarizes 2010 legal developments
New York Law School professor Art Leonard, founder and editor of Lesbian/Gay Law Notes, has prepared a summary of the major legal developments of 2010 affecting LGBT people, and he has posted it online here. His monthly Law Notes publication is the single best way to keep abreast of the legal news that matters to the lives of LGBT people.
Labels:
the LGBT rights movement
Tomorrow is last day to propose a panel for conference on lesbian lives in the 1970s
The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at CUNY (the City University of New York) is hosting a conference October 8-10 entitled, "In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbian Lives in the 1970s." Tomorrow is the last day to respond to their call for papers. I've submitted a proposal to speak on the emergence of the first legal issue specifically identified as lesbian: the right of a lesbian mother to leave a marriage and maintain custody of her children. I also hope to discuss my co-founding of and work with the DC Feminist Law Collective.
If you lived a lesbian life in the 70s, think about being part of the historical record that this conference will document. If you've studied lesbian life during that period, please come share what you know. Your proposal can be brief (500 words), so you've got time to submit it, even at this late date.
If you lived a lesbian life in the 70s, think about being part of the historical record that this conference will document. If you've studied lesbian life during that period, please come share what you know. Your proposal can be brief (500 words), so you've got time to submit it, even at this late date.
Labels:
the LGBT rights movement
Gay people missing from recent GAO report on Social Security
Shortly after posting about the flaws in the upcoming "Rock for Equality" action, I came across a post on the Elder Law Profs Blog about a Government Accountability Project report released last month. The report, Social Security: Options to Protect Benefits for Vulnerable Groups When Addressing Program Solvency, acknowledges and addresses the way Social Security currently deals with families. It highlights the preferential treatment given one-earner households and the disadvantages faced by dual earner couples. It discusses the vulnerability of women. The report draws the many years of work by researchers at the Urban Institute and the Institute for Women's Policy Research whom I referenced in my previous post, as well as the National Women's Law Center and other advocates and scholars.
There is no mention in the report, at all, of the distinct needs of lesbians and gay men and our families.
If gay rights advocates wanted to strengthen and improve Social Security for the most vulnerable in the LGBT community, they needed to be connected to the broader movement already way ahead in looking at our current system. I have been urging this for years. What I thought was that Social Security was nowhere near the top of the list of issues that gay organizations wanted to address. So to discover that two of our leading gay rights groups do indeed want to focus on Social Security, but without a coalition effort, without acknowledging that their narrow demand will help only one subset of the gay community and will actually replicate part of the problem reformers are trying to address is, well, maddening.
Of course it is also maddening that to date the efforts of feminist and progressive researchers and advocates have completely overlooked the distinct needs of lesbians and gay men and our families when it comes to Social Security. But that's why we have to be connected to those groups, to have the exchange of information and perspective that will ensure that our constituency is represented and that our advocates see the bigger picture of which we are a part.
Rock for Equality is a misguided action. I do not support it. In fact, it embarrasses me to be a part of a movement that actually thinks this is the way to tackle the Social Security issue from a gay rights perspective. I explained the problem in detail in my earlier post. It's too late to be included in the recent GAO report. It's not too late to get in touch with the experts who for years have been looking to reform the way Social Security treats families, so we can be included in their future work and the needs of all of us, including single LGBT individuals and same-sex couples with two relatively equal earners, can make their way into the next government report.
There is no mention in the report, at all, of the distinct needs of lesbians and gay men and our families.
If gay rights advocates wanted to strengthen and improve Social Security for the most vulnerable in the LGBT community, they needed to be connected to the broader movement already way ahead in looking at our current system. I have been urging this for years. What I thought was that Social Security was nowhere near the top of the list of issues that gay organizations wanted to address. So to discover that two of our leading gay rights groups do indeed want to focus on Social Security, but without a coalition effort, without acknowledging that their narrow demand will help only one subset of the gay community and will actually replicate part of the problem reformers are trying to address is, well, maddening.
Of course it is also maddening that to date the efforts of feminist and progressive researchers and advocates have completely overlooked the distinct needs of lesbians and gay men and our families when it comes to Social Security. But that's why we have to be connected to those groups, to have the exchange of information and perspective that will ensure that our constituency is represented and that our advocates see the bigger picture of which we are a part.
Rock for Equality is a misguided action. I do not support it. In fact, it embarrasses me to be a part of a movement that actually thinks this is the way to tackle the Social Security issue from a gay rights perspective. I explained the problem in detail in my earlier post. It's too late to be included in the recent GAO report. It's not too late to get in touch with the experts who for years have been looking to reform the way Social Security treats families, so we can be included in their future work and the needs of all of us, including single LGBT individuals and same-sex couples with two relatively equal earners, can make their way into the next government report.
Labels:
Social Security,
the LGBT rights movement
LA Gay and Lesbian Center and NGLTF lead misguided action about Social Security
As a long-time champion of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, it pains me to have to criticize that organization, as well as the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, for its just-unveiled Rock for Equality action. The premise of the action is simple -- and misguided: that same-sex couples, who, even if they marry, cannot have their marriages recognized under federal law, are discriminated against in social security benefits. Leaders of the two groups make the following statements on the action's website:
Lorri L. Jean: "LGBT Americans are being treated unfairly by Social Security—it’s as simple as that. ...Why should a LGBT widow or widower have to give up the home they have shared for years with their partner when that partner dies? Preventing such tragedies is exactly what Social Security Survivor’s Benefits are for!"
Rea Carey: "It’s unthinkable that in America, countless LGBT seniors — widows, widowers, and other retirees — are being systematically short-changed by unfair Social Security policies. ...Social Security was created to protect all Americans in their later years. It is utterly un-American that this institution discriminates against LGBT citizens."
I think most people reading the description of the problem on this website would think, at a minimum, that Social Security gives all married (heterosexual) couples a benefit that it denies to LGBT couples (whether or not they are married in the state where they live). A friend of mine said this to me: "When [my partner] dies, I can't get her social security benefits," as though if she and her partner were recognized as married by Social Security (or if they were a married heterosexual couple), she would get a benefit she is otherwise deprived of. As though every surviving spouse "inherits" something from Social Security.
This is a hard issue to understand and to explain. I'm going to try. One type of married couple gets this kind of windfall under Social Security -- it's the type of family that Congress had in mind in 1939, when it created the system and only 15% of married women earned their own income. When one spouse has earned all or the vast majority of the couple's income, the non-earner or low-earner spouse gets a retirement benefit equal to half her spouse's, even if she never paid into Social Security; and if her spouse dies first, she will then receive the amount of money he was receiving. Example: If his lifetime earnings entitle him to $1,800/month in benefits, she will receive $900 while he is alive and $1,800 once he dies. (So the household has $2,700/mo. while he is alive and $1,800 when he dies).
When a same-sex couple resembles this couple's earning pattern, that couple is, indeed, disadvantaged by being considered unmarried, when the couple is actually married in a state that allows it.
But same-sex couples with two earners, whose lifetime earnings are pretty close to each other(I'm pretty sure my friend and her partner fall into this category), will gain nothing by being considered married. Instead, they will find themselves, like equal-earning heterosexual couples (including most African-American married couples), paying more into the system and getting less out. Let's say each partner is entitled to $1,350/mo. based on her own earnings. Sure, if they are married, each can qualify for a spousal benefit. But that benefit is instead of, not on top of, what each qualifies for on her own. So the spousal benefit is only $675/mo. instead of $1,350, which, of course, no one would choose. So that household also gets $2,700/mo. while both are alive. But when the first spouse dies, the survivor simply keeps her own benefit -- $1,350. The surviving spouse sees a 50% cut in benefits to the household, compared to the 33% cut experienced by the surviving stay-at-home spouse whose deceased spouse earned all the family's income.
So Lorri Jean's outrage about one partner losing his home when the other partner dies happens right now to married heterosexuals, given the 50% reduction in household income, as well as to the survivor of a same-sex couple. If Rock for Equality succeeds in getting social security for same-sex couples on the same basis now afforded different-sex married couples, the surviving partner will continue to suffer this dramatic decrease in income unless his partner's lifetime earnings greatly succeeded his own. This is an action calling for support from the entire LGBT community, when only couples who come close to replicating the one-primary-earner household will be helped should the action succeed. All of us in couples where both partners work full-time and contribute close to equally to the household are being asked to support an action that will not benefit us at all. Not at all.
Scholars and advocates unconnected to the gay rights movement have been pointing out for years how unfair this system is...to equal earning married couples and to single parents, whose lifetime earnings suffer because of their childcare responsibilities and who have no income-earning spouse confering a spousal benefit. Research by the Institute for Women's Policy Research and law professor Dorothy Brown demonstrates that black couples are disadvantaged by the current Social Security system.
I have urged gay rights groups to connect with those advocates who criticize the failure of Social Security to equally value current family structures. Instead, Rock for Equality suggests that the social security system in uniquely unfair to same-sex couples. It's an opportunity for coalition work missed...and for what? Or I should say for whom? For the segment of our community who can afford to have one partner work part-time, or be a stay-at-home parent, or make employment choices based on criteria other than maximizing income.
The Rock for Equality website has a graphic presenting the amount of lost social security income to a couple when one earns $95,000/yr and the other earns $45,000. Leaving aside just how much this household has, compared to average households, the graphic would look very different if each partner earned $70,000. Then the cost of the "discrimination" would be ... zero. (I'm not counting the $255 death benefit that every surviving spouse receives based on the marriage alone ; I'm pretty sure if the only loss to same-sex couples was $255, this issue would not would not form the basis of a major stand-alone campaign.)
And if one spouse earned $140,000 and the other earned nothing, another graphic could show that those two people pay far less into Social Security than the $70,000-each couple, and yet they get far more out in terms of social security payments. That's the windfall that goes to the couples social security was originally designed for. Every one of us subsidizes those couples.
The Rock for Equality website cites Williams Institute data that, on average, lack of access to spousal social security benefits costs same-sex couples $5700/yr. Even if that figure is an accurate average, this is one place where average doesn't tell the story. If one couple loses $11,400/yr and another couple loses nothing, the average loss is $5700/yr. But one couple isn't hurt at all, and, in fact, is subsidizing the other couple's benefits. The Task Force and the LA Center are not asking all LBGT couples to come out and support an action that will benefit half of us; their rhetoric suggests that all our couples are victims of this discrimination. This is not true.
It's past time for a conversation about the redistribution of income from single earners and dual earner couples to married couples with one primary earner. The Urban Institute has been pushing that conversation for many years. Now two gay rights groups want to enter a conversation about discrimination in social security, but only to ask that when same-sex couples have one primary income earner they, too, should be subsidized by the rest of us -- including all the same-sex couples with two equal-income earners.
I am well-known for my stance that marriage should not confer "special rights." That may make some who disagree with me inclined to discount my criticism of the Rock for Equality effort. So let me be clear. This action, if it succeeds, will result in some same-sex married couples getting an advantage at the expense of other same-sex married couples, who will not benefit at all.
Why is that a good use of movement resources?
Lorri L. Jean: "LGBT Americans are being treated unfairly by Social Security—it’s as simple as that. ...Why should a LGBT widow or widower have to give up the home they have shared for years with their partner when that partner dies? Preventing such tragedies is exactly what Social Security Survivor’s Benefits are for!"
Rea Carey: "It’s unthinkable that in America, countless LGBT seniors — widows, widowers, and other retirees — are being systematically short-changed by unfair Social Security policies. ...Social Security was created to protect all Americans in their later years. It is utterly un-American that this institution discriminates against LGBT citizens."
I think most people reading the description of the problem on this website would think, at a minimum, that Social Security gives all married (heterosexual) couples a benefit that it denies to LGBT couples (whether or not they are married in the state where they live). A friend of mine said this to me: "When [my partner] dies, I can't get her social security benefits," as though if she and her partner were recognized as married by Social Security (or if they were a married heterosexual couple), she would get a benefit she is otherwise deprived of. As though every surviving spouse "inherits" something from Social Security.
This is a hard issue to understand and to explain. I'm going to try. One type of married couple gets this kind of windfall under Social Security -- it's the type of family that Congress had in mind in 1939, when it created the system and only 15% of married women earned their own income. When one spouse has earned all or the vast majority of the couple's income, the non-earner or low-earner spouse gets a retirement benefit equal to half her spouse's, even if she never paid into Social Security; and if her spouse dies first, she will then receive the amount of money he was receiving. Example: If his lifetime earnings entitle him to $1,800/month in benefits, she will receive $900 while he is alive and $1,800 once he dies. (So the household has $2,700/mo. while he is alive and $1,800 when he dies).
When a same-sex couple resembles this couple's earning pattern, that couple is, indeed, disadvantaged by being considered unmarried, when the couple is actually married in a state that allows it.
But same-sex couples with two earners, whose lifetime earnings are pretty close to each other(I'm pretty sure my friend and her partner fall into this category), will gain nothing by being considered married. Instead, they will find themselves, like equal-earning heterosexual couples (including most African-American married couples), paying more into the system and getting less out. Let's say each partner is entitled to $1,350/mo. based on her own earnings. Sure, if they are married, each can qualify for a spousal benefit. But that benefit is instead of, not on top of, what each qualifies for on her own. So the spousal benefit is only $675/mo. instead of $1,350, which, of course, no one would choose. So that household also gets $2,700/mo. while both are alive. But when the first spouse dies, the survivor simply keeps her own benefit -- $1,350. The surviving spouse sees a 50% cut in benefits to the household, compared to the 33% cut experienced by the surviving stay-at-home spouse whose deceased spouse earned all the family's income.
So Lorri Jean's outrage about one partner losing his home when the other partner dies happens right now to married heterosexuals, given the 50% reduction in household income, as well as to the survivor of a same-sex couple. If Rock for Equality succeeds in getting social security for same-sex couples on the same basis now afforded different-sex married couples, the surviving partner will continue to suffer this dramatic decrease in income unless his partner's lifetime earnings greatly succeeded his own. This is an action calling for support from the entire LGBT community, when only couples who come close to replicating the one-primary-earner household will be helped should the action succeed. All of us in couples where both partners work full-time and contribute close to equally to the household are being asked to support an action that will not benefit us at all. Not at all.
Scholars and advocates unconnected to the gay rights movement have been pointing out for years how unfair this system is...to equal earning married couples and to single parents, whose lifetime earnings suffer because of their childcare responsibilities and who have no income-earning spouse confering a spousal benefit. Research by the Institute for Women's Policy Research and law professor Dorothy Brown demonstrates that black couples are disadvantaged by the current Social Security system.
I have urged gay rights groups to connect with those advocates who criticize the failure of Social Security to equally value current family structures. Instead, Rock for Equality suggests that the social security system in uniquely unfair to same-sex couples. It's an opportunity for coalition work missed...and for what? Or I should say for whom? For the segment of our community who can afford to have one partner work part-time, or be a stay-at-home parent, or make employment choices based on criteria other than maximizing income.
The Rock for Equality website has a graphic presenting the amount of lost social security income to a couple when one earns $95,000/yr and the other earns $45,000. Leaving aside just how much this household has, compared to average households, the graphic would look very different if each partner earned $70,000. Then the cost of the "discrimination" would be ... zero. (I'm not counting the $255 death benefit that every surviving spouse receives based on the marriage alone ; I'm pretty sure if the only loss to same-sex couples was $255, this issue would not would not form the basis of a major stand-alone campaign.)
And if one spouse earned $140,000 and the other earned nothing, another graphic could show that those two people pay far less into Social Security than the $70,000-each couple, and yet they get far more out in terms of social security payments. That's the windfall that goes to the couples social security was originally designed for. Every one of us subsidizes those couples.
The Rock for Equality website cites Williams Institute data that, on average, lack of access to spousal social security benefits costs same-sex couples $5700/yr. Even if that figure is an accurate average, this is one place where average doesn't tell the story. If one couple loses $11,400/yr and another couple loses nothing, the average loss is $5700/yr. But one couple isn't hurt at all, and, in fact, is subsidizing the other couple's benefits. The Task Force and the LA Center are not asking all LBGT couples to come out and support an action that will benefit half of us; their rhetoric suggests that all our couples are victims of this discrimination. This is not true.
It's past time for a conversation about the redistribution of income from single earners and dual earner couples to married couples with one primary earner. The Urban Institute has been pushing that conversation for many years. Now two gay rights groups want to enter a conversation about discrimination in social security, but only to ask that when same-sex couples have one primary income earner they, too, should be subsidized by the rest of us -- including all the same-sex couples with two equal-income earners.
I am well-known for my stance that marriage should not confer "special rights." That may make some who disagree with me inclined to discount my criticism of the Rock for Equality effort. So let me be clear. This action, if it succeeds, will result in some same-sex married couples getting an advantage at the expense of other same-sex married couples, who will not benefit at all.
Why is that a good use of movement resources?
Labels:
Social Security,
the LGBT rights movement
Congratulations to Kenyon Farrow
Queers for Economic Justice has named Kenyon Farrow its new Executive Director. I met Kenyon when we were both part of the group that wrote the "Beyond Marriage" statement. Kenyon is a visionary. QEJ is the only LGBT organization with a mission dedicated solely to the well-being of those who are economically disadvantaged.
I'll be making my annual contribution to QEJ in Kenyon's honor. I invite others to do the same.
I'll be making my annual contribution to QEJ in Kenyon's honor. I invite others to do the same.
Recent dissents from the focus on same-sex marriage
While I know I'm not alone in questioning the focus on achieving marriage for same-sex couples, consumers of mainstream media might never see dissenting viewpoints coming from the gay rights movement itself.
Here are two recent posts worthy of attention. Historian Amy Sueyoshi notes that "the marriage movement’s single-minded determination for 'equality for all' has forgotten that many more queers suffer at the hands of more urgent inequalities." And fellow Bilerico contributor Yasmin Nair has had a series of posts at Bilerico and elsewhere (this one spurred 200 comments). She argues, among many other things, that "the fight over gay marriage has emerged as a progressive cause that all progressive straights should join in when, in fact, it's a deeply conservative movement that strips our movement of any imagination."
You may not agree with everything these writers say (I don't), but they are voices that need to be heard above the din about marriage equality.
Here are two recent posts worthy of attention. Historian Amy Sueyoshi notes that "the marriage movement’s single-minded determination for 'equality for all' has forgotten that many more queers suffer at the hands of more urgent inequalities." And fellow Bilerico contributor Yasmin Nair has had a series of posts at Bilerico and elsewhere (this one spurred 200 comments). She argues, among many other things, that "the fight over gay marriage has emerged as a progressive cause that all progressive straights should join in when, in fact, it's a deeply conservative movement that strips our movement of any imagination."
You may not agree with everything these writers say (I don't), but they are voices that need to be heard above the din about marriage equality.
A "beyond marriage" perspective on the anniversary of Stonewall
Lisa Duggan, an original drafter of the "beyond marriage" vision statement, has a piece in the Nation and appears on today's Democracy Now. In her Democracy Now interview, she is especially eloquent about who the movement for marriage equality leaves out and how thinking more broadly about family and relationship recognition can benefit more LGBT people and be a basis for building real alliances with straight people who also do not live in marital units. Check it out.
Labels:
defining family,
the LGBT rights movement
Love makes a family...but only through marriage
On a day when most people are focused on the marriage win in Iowa (watch for my post on the court's opinion soon), I read the news that the Connecticut group Love Makes A Family is disbanding. Its "core purpose" was achieving marriage for same-sex couples, and., having done that, it is closing up shop. So I guess its name should have been Marriage Makes a Family.
Often when I talk about the ideas in Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage, someone says to me that s/he agrees with me but that making marriage matter less should happen after same-sex couples can marry. The folding of this Connecticut group confirms my fears that marriage is the end point for many people and that achieving justice for the same-sex couples who don't marry and for all the gay men and lesbians, and their children, who are not partnered is not on the agenda.
What could this group do to further the well-being of all gay men and lesbians in Connecticut? The list is long, but here's one example -- push for a free, easy-to-use advance directive registry. Now if you get married in Connecticut, your partner can visit you in the hospital and make your health care decisions in an emergency. But what about the unmarried couples and all the unpartnered gay men and lesbians?
Love Makes a Family could become part of a coalition working to ensure that everyone in the state can select the people to make their emergency health care decisions. There are states with model registries (my top nominee is Idaho). They could advocate a law like that in the District of Columbia that gives unmarried/unregistered domestic partners priority decision-making authority and that lets someone farther down the list of priority decisionmakers trump someone higher up the list if that person can demonstrate that he or she knows the patient and the patient's wishes better.
Lesbians and gay men often move away from homophobic relatives and gay-unfriendly cities and towns to more supportive areas of the country, like Connecticut. All of them, not just those who marry, need laws that make it as likely as possible that the person they would pick will be able to visit them in the hospital and make their emergency health care decisions.
I've got more agenda items on my list. Unfortunately, there's no LGBT equality group in Connecticut to discuss them with.
Often when I talk about the ideas in Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage, someone says to me that s/he agrees with me but that making marriage matter less should happen after same-sex couples can marry. The folding of this Connecticut group confirms my fears that marriage is the end point for many people and that achieving justice for the same-sex couples who don't marry and for all the gay men and lesbians, and their children, who are not partnered is not on the agenda.
What could this group do to further the well-being of all gay men and lesbians in Connecticut? The list is long, but here's one example -- push for a free, easy-to-use advance directive registry. Now if you get married in Connecticut, your partner can visit you in the hospital and make your health care decisions in an emergency. But what about the unmarried couples and all the unpartnered gay men and lesbians?
Love Makes a Family could become part of a coalition working to ensure that everyone in the state can select the people to make their emergency health care decisions. There are states with model registries (my top nominee is Idaho). They could advocate a law like that in the District of Columbia that gives unmarried/unregistered domestic partners priority decision-making authority and that lets someone farther down the list of priority decisionmakers trump someone higher up the list if that person can demonstrate that he or she knows the patient and the patient's wishes better.
Lesbians and gay men often move away from homophobic relatives and gay-unfriendly cities and towns to more supportive areas of the country, like Connecticut. All of them, not just those who marry, need laws that make it as likely as possible that the person they would pick will be able to visit them in the hospital and make their emergency health care decisions.
I've got more agenda items on my list. Unfortunately, there's no LGBT equality group in Connecticut to discuss them with.
Beyond Marriage Goes to Creating Change
Creating Change was fabulous as usual. "Beyond marriage" ideas showed up in several ways. At a Thursday morning plenary for some of the day-long institutes, activist Urvashi Vaid's top-10 list included expanding relationship recognition. (It was number 4) "Why ask for what exists?" she asked. "We need to broaden the definition of family." And then she recommended my book to everyone! A proud moment for me, indeed.
Queers for Economic Justice held a reception and honored two of the original drafters of the "Beyond Marriage" statement, Richard Kim and Suzanne Pharr. QEJ executive director Joseph DeFilippis was a major coordinator of the meeting from which the Beyond Marriage statement emerged in 2006. Kenyon Farrow, emcee of the QEJ event, referred to the statement, and to QEJ's commitment to its principles. Congratulations to Richard and Suzanne for well-deserved recognition!
"Beyond Marriage 2009" was the workshop session I coordinated. Terry Boggis, director of Center Kids, the families program at NY's LGBT Center, described the kinds of family structures served by the center and the way in which marriage fails to speak to their needs. For example, she described one family consisting of a lesbian and a gay man who decided to raise a child together and live in the same apartment building. Debanuj Dasgupta focused on immigration issues, urging LGBT participation in immigration reform. He pointed out the limitations of the Uniting All Families Act, especially the income requirements. Nicky Grist, ED of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, highlighted that amazing group's work on health care issues. (How do they do so much with such a small budget? And imagine what they could do with more funding!)
I highlighted the campaign to end federal funding of marriage promotion. And I discussed paid sick leave laws, urging those in states where bills have been or might be introduced to urge the broadest possible definition of sick family members for whom an employee can use that leave.
Many people, at different points throughout the conference, talked to me about plugging into a "beyond marriage" movement. Sigh. I wish we had one!
Queers for Economic Justice held a reception and honored two of the original drafters of the "Beyond Marriage" statement, Richard Kim and Suzanne Pharr. QEJ executive director Joseph DeFilippis was a major coordinator of the meeting from which the Beyond Marriage statement emerged in 2006. Kenyon Farrow, emcee of the QEJ event, referred to the statement, and to QEJ's commitment to its principles. Congratulations to Richard and Suzanne for well-deserved recognition!
"Beyond Marriage 2009" was the workshop session I coordinated. Terry Boggis, director of Center Kids, the families program at NY's LGBT Center, described the kinds of family structures served by the center and the way in which marriage fails to speak to their needs. For example, she described one family consisting of a lesbian and a gay man who decided to raise a child together and live in the same apartment building. Debanuj Dasgupta focused on immigration issues, urging LGBT participation in immigration reform. He pointed out the limitations of the Uniting All Families Act, especially the income requirements. Nicky Grist, ED of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, highlighted that amazing group's work on health care issues. (How do they do so much with such a small budget? And imagine what they could do with more funding!)
I highlighted the campaign to end federal funding of marriage promotion. And I discussed paid sick leave laws, urging those in states where bills have been or might be introduced to urge the broadest possible definition of sick family members for whom an employee can use that leave.
Many people, at different points throughout the conference, talked to me about plugging into a "beyond marriage" movement. Sigh. I wish we had one!
Labels:
the LGBT rights movement
Creating Change conference coming up
Support of adoption by LGBT individuals and couples on the White House website? It is amazing, but the White House doesn't control adoption law. States do that, and, like Arkansas in the last election, states can decide to limit adoption to married couples, to single people who live alone, or to whomever they want (subject to Constitutional challenge like that of the ACLU to the Arkansas law).
For updates on state, as well as federal, politics, and on movement building and racial justice and trans issues and all sorts of things, head to Denver next week for Creating Change, the annual conference sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The conference begins with two day-long institutes on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by a nine workshop sessions and four plenaries through Sunday afternoon.
I'll be there, doing a Beyond Marriage 2009 workshop, with Nicky Grist of Alternatives to Marriage Project, Terry Boggis of Center Kids, and immigration activist Debanuj DasGupta. The whole program book is now on line, so you can check it out yourself. Freedom to Marry will be there, and certainly there will be talk of marriage and a Prop 8 debrief. But this is the place if your issue is NOT marriage and you want to connect to activists from around the country.
I'm excited about many of the participants, but I'll just highlight two. Pam Chamberlain of Political Research Associates will be there, and her group does critical work on fighting the right wing (and no, they're not going away just because we elected Barack Obama). PRA has recently published scathing reports on what's wrong with federal marriage promotion. John D'Emilio will also be speaking, and his article in the Gay and Lesbian Review remains one of the clearest and most scathing critiques there is of the gay rights movement fight for marriage.
If you come to the conference, please come to Beyond Marriage 2009 and introduce yourself to me!
For updates on state, as well as federal, politics, and on movement building and racial justice and trans issues and all sorts of things, head to Denver next week for Creating Change, the annual conference sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The conference begins with two day-long institutes on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by a nine workshop sessions and four plenaries through Sunday afternoon.
I'll be there, doing a Beyond Marriage 2009 workshop, with Nicky Grist of Alternatives to Marriage Project, Terry Boggis of Center Kids, and immigration activist Debanuj DasGupta. The whole program book is now on line, so you can check it out yourself. Freedom to Marry will be there, and certainly there will be talk of marriage and a Prop 8 debrief. But this is the place if your issue is NOT marriage and you want to connect to activists from around the country.
I'm excited about many of the participants, but I'll just highlight two. Pam Chamberlain of Political Research Associates will be there, and her group does critical work on fighting the right wing (and no, they're not going away just because we elected Barack Obama). PRA has recently published scathing reports on what's wrong with federal marriage promotion. John D'Emilio will also be speaking, and his article in the Gay and Lesbian Review remains one of the clearest and most scathing critiques there is of the gay rights movement fight for marriage.
If you come to the conference, please come to Beyond Marriage 2009 and introduce yourself to me!
We're not getting allies complaining this way about the tax laws
If news reports from a panel at last week's Gay and Lesbian Leadership Conference are correct, some of the leaders of our national organizations need some educating. According to an article in the Washington Blade, "[Human Rights Campaign President Joe] Solmonese and others on the panel agreed that amidst the national recession, a new focus should be placed on the unique economic issues that gay Americans face, such as tax inequities." (emphasis mine)
Tax inequities as economic issues unique to gay Americans? Which would those be? Under our current income tax structure, one family form gets enormous benefits: a married heterosexual couple in which one partner earns all, or the great majority of, the family's income. So if our leaders think the income tax laws are unfair to gay couples, they can only be referring to gay couples in which one partner earns all, or most, of the income. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not fighting a revolution over that issue. And it's not going to win us straight allies either.
Now joining with all the other disadvantaged family forms, and that includes heterosexual married couples who are equal income earners, that's something I can get behind. Turns out the folks who study our income tax system from a critical race perspective, like Emory Law School prof Dorothy Brown, point out that our tax laws disadvantage African-American married couples. Why? Because -- no surprise -- they are more likely to be close-to-equal income earners. So much for tax inequities unique to gay Americans. For more on what's wrong with how our income tax structure treats families, see the excellent website of the Alternatives to Marriage Project.
How about other taxes? Inheritance taxes and property transfer taxes are two examples of laws that favor married couples. But that still doesn't make the inequities unique to gay folks. Two sisters who pool their economic resources for a lifetime? Two single parents -- gay, straight, one of each -- who form an economically and emotionally interdependent unit to raise their children? A loving daughter who devotes 20 years of her life to living with and caring for an ill and aging mother? A communal household of radical faeries?
The list goes on, and the bottom line is that married couples get the tax breaks. If same sex couples could marry-and we got rid of DOMA-, then married same-sex couples would get those breaks too. As far as I'm concerned, that would bring us no closer to tax equity than we are now. For that, we need to make marriage matter less.
And if we're looking for economic issues that will resonate beyond our narrow movement, somebody in our leadership needs to start with just economic policies for all families and relationships, not the benefits wealthy married couples get from our tax laws.
Tax inequities as economic issues unique to gay Americans? Which would those be? Under our current income tax structure, one family form gets enormous benefits: a married heterosexual couple in which one partner earns all, or the great majority of, the family's income. So if our leaders think the income tax laws are unfair to gay couples, they can only be referring to gay couples in which one partner earns all, or most, of the income. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not fighting a revolution over that issue. And it's not going to win us straight allies either.
Now joining with all the other disadvantaged family forms, and that includes heterosexual married couples who are equal income earners, that's something I can get behind. Turns out the folks who study our income tax system from a critical race perspective, like Emory Law School prof Dorothy Brown, point out that our tax laws disadvantage African-American married couples. Why? Because -- no surprise -- they are more likely to be close-to-equal income earners. So much for tax inequities unique to gay Americans. For more on what's wrong with how our income tax structure treats families, see the excellent website of the Alternatives to Marriage Project.
How about other taxes? Inheritance taxes and property transfer taxes are two examples of laws that favor married couples. But that still doesn't make the inequities unique to gay folks. Two sisters who pool their economic resources for a lifetime? Two single parents -- gay, straight, one of each -- who form an economically and emotionally interdependent unit to raise their children? A loving daughter who devotes 20 years of her life to living with and caring for an ill and aging mother? A communal household of radical faeries?
The list goes on, and the bottom line is that married couples get the tax breaks. If same sex couples could marry-and we got rid of DOMA-, then married same-sex couples would get those breaks too. As far as I'm concerned, that would bring us no closer to tax equity than we are now. For that, we need to make marriage matter less.
And if we're looking for economic issues that will resonate beyond our narrow movement, somebody in our leadership needs to start with just economic policies for all families and relationships, not the benefits wealthy married couples get from our tax laws.
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