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 Coping
with the Straight World
All
Gay People CHOOSE their Lifestyles!
Letter to the Editor By Tracey Stevens
Great to see the positive comments about Tulsa named emerging city for same-sex
couples. I did want to reply to A Tulsan’s comment, number 5, about gay people
‘Choosing that lifestyle.”
The only choice I have about being
a lesbian is whether I lie about it or not. I have no choice in this. People who
are bisexual may have a choice. People who are truly gay do not.
Like
A Tulsan’s comment above, I see people over and over again making this mistake
in thinking that gay people just wake up one day and say “Gee, I think I
will become a homo. I think I will be what at least 50% of the world’s population
fear and hate. I think I will become the scourge of society, be assumed to be
a child molester, and have over 1300 less rights than any other tax paying married
citizens in the USA.” It sure wasn’t like that for me. I knew I was
lesbian since I was a little tiny kid, and I am not your stereotypical butch.
What I have seen, over and over in my life, is that people who are in denial
of who they are, whether that is being gay or bisexual, are usually the ones who
are the most homophobic and really work at making the life of every gay person
they come in contact with pure misery. They are pointing one hateful finger at
us, getting us fired from jobs, thrown out of our housing, beaten up and sometimes
killed for being honest about who we are, while they have three of their own fingers
pointing right back at their own closet-case selves.
When the marriage
issue comes up, many people do not understand that gay Americans, as a whole,
pay over forty billion dollars in Federal Income Taxes each and every year, and
yet we are denied over 1,300 rights that married straight couples have. Here’s
a letter to a local congressman that I wrote concerning this:
Dear
Congressman Taylor,
Thanks again for your email and stating your opinion
that you believe that marriage should be between an man and a woman. As far as
rights that are guaranteed to every American, I agree that we must disagree on
this, as I do not feel that I am protected by the Constitution as everyone is.
I have been fired from jobs, lost my housing, and put up with horrible prejudice
for most of my life, because of who I was born to be. People say we choose this?
Why would anyone choose to be tormented in this way? I can’t choose to be
straight, any more than you could choose to be gay. The only thing I could choose
to do is to lie about who I am, and I am not a liar.
Being lesbian, I
have never been into marriage as to me it is more of a heterosexual institution,
but it would be nice if my relationship of fourteen years had the same rights
as that of married straight people. I’m not sure if you know this, but there
are over 1,300 rights that are granted to straight couples that gay couples do
not have. I have listed a few below:
Devoted gay and lesbian couples
shoulder the responsibilities of marriage, but have few of the legal rights and
protections. Married couples receive more than 1,300 protections, rights and benefits
under state and federal law, and are denied basic protections and rights granted
to married couples. For example:
*
Hospital visitation. Married couples have the automatic right to visit each other
in the hospital and make medical decisions. Gay and lesbian couples can be denied
the right to visit a sick or injured loved one in the hospital.
* Social
Security benefits. Married people receive Social Security payments upon the death
of a spouse. Despite paying payroll taxes, gay and lesbian workers receive no
Social Security survivor benefits – resulting in an average annual income
loss of $5,528 upon the death of a partner.
* Health insurance. Many
public and private employers provide medical coverage to the spouses of their
employees, but most employers do not provide coverage to the life partners of
gay and lesbian employees. Gay employees who do receive health coverage for their
partners must pay federal income taxes on the value of the insurance.
* Estate taxes. A married person automatically inherits all the property of his
or her deceased spouse without paying estate taxes–a gay or lesbian taxpayer
is forced to pay estate taxes on property inherited from a deceased partner.
* Retirement savings. While a married person can roll a deceased spouse’s
401(k) funds into an IRA without paying taxes, the government will take up to
70% of the amount in taxes and penalties from a gay or lesbian senior.
* Family leave. Married workers are legally entitled to unpaid leave from their
jobs to care for an ill spouse--gay and lesbian workers do not get family leave.
* Nursing homes. Married couples have a legal right to live together in nursing
homes. Because they are not legal spouses, elderly gay or lesbian couples do not
have the right to spend their last days living together in nursing homes.
* Home protection. Laws protect married seniors from being forced to sell
their homes to pay high nursing-home bills; gay and lesbian seniors have no such
protection.
* Pensions. After the death of a worker, most pension plans
pay survivor benefits only to a legal spouse of the participant–so gay and
lesbian workers get no pension support for their partners.
And these are just
a few of the basic things that married people have that domestic partners don’t
have. Most people don’t know about this injustice either.
I
have known people who have lost their partners of over thirty years, and have
no recourse when the deceased partner’s family come in and sells the house
out from under the remaining partner. I have known people who had partners incapacitated
in the hospital, but were not allowed to make decisions as to their care. In one
case, the family that disowned the son years before, came in and allowed him to
remain in a coma, even though he had always requested that his long-time partner
promise he would make sure to take him off life support, if it was determined
that he would not survive. I have known a woman who was maimed in car accident,
and her partner of 15 years was not allowed to see her ever again because of parents
who now controlled their wheelchair-bound daughter’s life.
These
are just people I have known who have been severely affected by the lack of rights
we actually have under the law.
What I’d like to know is why straight
mass murderers, rapists, and serial killers are permitted to be married while
in prison, and yet law-abiding, tax paying, LGBT citizens in loving, stable, relationships,
many who are raising children, are not afforded this same basic right? Wouldn’t
it be nice if Kathy and I, who have been together for over 16 years, had the same
rights as someone on death row? Just something to think about.
Again,
I appreciate that you took the time to write back about these concerns. I don’t
believe that fighting and hatred ever solve anything, so I’m hoping maybe
our correspondence has helped you understand the other side of a situation that
you would have no way of knowing about unless you walked in the shoes of 10 to
20 percent of the population...
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