I just got done with filing taxes for me and my wife. Filed as married - something that always makes me nervous, since there is absolutely no right way to fill out the form and know that it's legally correct. In 10 years, we might find ourselves fiscally ruined for this. Of course if we filed as single separately, the same thing might happen.
I do the taxes in our family - because of issues like this. Even a tax form brings up the reality that the law doesn't yet fully recognize her, so I try to deal with this stuff so she doesn't have to. She's dealt with enough of this garbage, been hurt enough by the law. I'm only going through a very small part of what she's gone through, and even that angers me that the law is so broken.
I would wish upon every bigot that *their* marriage have this level of legal and social uncertainty. Maybe we're legally married, maybe we're not. There's nobody in the world who could tell me for sure. But we're not the ones that deserve that - we're not the ones taking away anyone's rights. And I know - regardless of whatever legal uncertainties - that we are husband and wife. There are some things that transcend uncertainty.
It is so darn complex. There's my wife's birth state. Then there's the state we married in. Then there's the state we live in. All with different laws, all with different ways of determining sex and gender. Some are completely uncertain, because it hasn't made it to the courts yet - but the idiots making the laws write things like "one man, one woman" without bothering to say who the state considers to be a man or a woman. The feds allow a sex marker to be changed on their documents, but is that relevant to the IRS in determining who is married? Nobody really knows, because the feds are recognizing a sex, but don't generally recognize a marriage a state doesn't. Someone could challenge our marriage in at least two, maybe three states, and at the federal level, all with very different legal histories - and that certainly would change the view of the IRS and every other government program.
I should not need to know intricacies of family law just to file taxes, nor should there be a "darned-if-you-do, darned-if-you-don't" trap like this. Certainly I shouldn't need to know it on the federal level and within the jurisdiction of three states.
But, because some people hate some other people, my marriage is caught up in the battle.
I'd challenge any of the right wing bigots to come to my house. Live with me and my wife for a few days. And then tell me you don't see a marriage.
I know I don't see the mark of Jesus when I see the effects of their bigotry. Certainly I don't see love.
I am angry right now. Neither my wife or myself deserve this, nor do any number of other married people in our situation. I'm not a person that angers easily. I'm angry that the law is broken. I'm angry that people intentionally broke it. I'm angry that they broke it to hurt people intentionally. I'm angry that my wife has to deal not only with strangers, but with the legal system itself, never letting her be fully sure she is who she is. As a husband, my blood is boiling.
I'm also sad. The country I love has let me down. It's let my wife down. This is a country that eventually makes wrongs right, but it does it so incredibly slowly. I'm sad when I think of the lost time. Why does my country think it's right to make people wait to have human rights? I just want to cry.
Sorry for the rambling, but I had to vent. I can only imagine if I see this kind of stuff as a spouse, how much more vivid and terrifying things must be for someone who is the very object of the prejudice rather than once removed as I am - and I don't mean to imply my situation is even in the slightest bit comparable, because it's not. But I'm still angry and sad.
