I Need My Tax Dollars to do That: Support My Family Too

Imagine you’re 80. Your partner of 50+ years just died. You both paid your taxes throughout adulthood so you should be able to live off of your spouse’s social security, right? Wrong.

For the 131,729 same-sex couples who identified their partner as their “husband” or “wife” in the 2010 Census Report (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/28/census-reports-more-than-130000-same-sex-couples-say-theyre-married/), they will not receive their spouse’s social security because the Federal Government does not recognize them as married. As the proud daughter of a same-sex couple, I find it outrageous that my moms pay their appropriate taxes toward social security (approximately 14% of their income), have a Massachusetts marriage license and yet when the time comes, one will be denied the other’s social security.

This is how the Social Security Administration handles it:

“Under Federal law an individual whose claim for benefits is based on a State recognized same-sex marriage or having the same status as spouse for State inheritance purposes cannot meet the statutory gender-based definition of husband or wife of the worker, including one who is divorced. Therefore, for all benefit purposes, the Social Security Administration does not recognize such individual as the spouse of the worker.” (http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OP_Home/handbook/handbook.03/handbook-0306.html)

photo credit: http://krystlem.tumblr.com/post/3729304852

The equal rights symbol. I have seen it on cars, laptops, binders and water bottles as a demonstration of equal rights for all families. 

The Tenth Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people” (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment). Marriage, or more specifically marriage legislation, falls under state jurisdiction, not Federal. Massachusetts is currently the only state that grants full marriage rights to same-sex couples. Furthermore, my moms’ marriage license is not recognized in any other state (http://www.amsa.org/AMSA/Homepage/About/Committees/GenderandSexuality/StatebyStateLGBTLegislation.aspx#MA). 

The failure of a state to acknowledge the marriage license of another state simply because of the sex of the couple when driver’s licenses are readily accepted is ridiculous. But the fact that the Federal Government completely disregards the Tenth Amendment in this case is ludicrous.  The Federal Government has no right to redefine a state’s definition of marriage. It needs to recognize Massachusetts’ definition of marriage so that the same-sex couples like my parents who work hard and pay their taxes get the same financial protection heterosexual couples receive. What the Fed is doing is not just unconstitutional: it is flat-out discrimination.