Why civil unions don't cut it

I had a chat with a person of the straight male persuasion recently where it soon became clear that he had no idea what the fuss was about regarding gay marriage--he asked me, "Aren't civil unions good enough?"

Well, no, they're not--as long as we of the queer persuasion are still paying the same taxes as everyone else.

Not even close.

This was made crystal clear by a recent report funded by The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute, "Economic Benefits of Marriage: Under Federal and Connecticut Law," by Terence Dougherty (go to http://www.thetaskforce.org, head to the Resource Library, and click on Reports & Research for a free copy). It offered example after example of how gays and lesbians are shortchanged because they aren't allowed to marry in the eyes of the federal government.

While I had heard that there were over a thousand benefits to being married, I had no idea that these benefits added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The eye opener for me was a table tallying the tax and social security benefits a gay couple, Stephen and Andre, wouldn't get because they couldn't marry. Since I'm not tech-savvy enough to reproduce it here, allow me to offer the summary:

"In total, if Andre and Stephen continue to work until they reach retirement age in 2020, they can expect to have over $212,000 less than if they were able to legally marry under federal and Connecticut state law. If their hypothetical estate tax is included, that lifetime detriment increases to over $750,000."

Over $212,000?! Over $750,000??!!

And sadly, cool as they may be, marriages as offered by the state of Massachusetts do very little to make this better--most of the money lies in the federal domain: Social Security, estate taxes, and so forth.

So, now I'm really P.O.d about my tax burden this year--all this money going to the feds, and what do I get in return? Not just nothing--HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS LESS THAN NOTHING!!!!

AAAAAIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!