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LGBT Families Face MEGA Issues

I am on the mailing list for the MEGA Family Project, not because I currently have a partner and family in my life (I do not), but because I so admire the efforts of this important organization and want to keep up with their work. Born four years ago during the fight against the anti-gay marriage amendment in Georgia (the genesis of the name was “Marriage Equality Georgia”), MEGA has transformed itself post-amendment into an important voice and resource for LGBT families, in particular those with children. An e-mail to the MEGA list, penned by Executive Director Kathy Kelly, got my attention when it hit my inbox late last night. I was struck by the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of her words on the work yet left undone for LGBT families in Georgia (and in fact the nation, if not the world).

I wanted to post here some of Kelly’s thoughts, because I believe successfully meeting these needs is critical to advancing gay rights overall. Whether we currently find ourselves partnered with kids or not, issues affecting queer families affect all of us by association. Gay and lesbian family issues are, in a sense, examples of the discrimination and homophobia that impact the entire queer community. Ultimately, we all benefit from the work of MEGA, even if their focus on families with children doesn’t seem to apply to any one of use personally.

A rising tide lifts all boats. MEGA lifts us all through their work for acceptance, for equal rights and responsibilities under our laws, and for an end to hatred and fear. Here, then, are Kathy Kelly’s thoughts (very slightly edited by me for editorial consistency) on the state of her organization’s advocacy efforts, and her list of the 6 areas that she she sees as important for LGBT families:

“Some days, I am completely overwhelmed by the unmet needs we (in the LGBT community) are experiencing. There is so much that needs to be done for us to have strong families, healthy children, and to keep Georgia a place where LGBT families are treated well and continue to thrive.

I just came back from a national conference where many people are struggling with doing the very important work needed in the LGBT community, but I am in a very different place. I feel hopeful, optimistic, and downright joyful about the potential future for our families. We are on our way, we just need to continue doing the work to get our families to a strong, healthy place in history.

Below are some critical areas that currently receive only minimal attention from MEGA due to our limited financial resources:

1. Our kids need support through ongoing programs to help them face the certain discrimination and possible bullying they may face.
2. Parents need to be better armed to face a world designed for heterosexual families (from churches, to schools, to the playground).
3. Parents need to be educated about the best legal means available to protect their families given the current political landscape in Georgia.
4. LGBT adults coming out of heterosexual marriages with children need our support from what is often a difficult transition for both kids and adults.
5. Our children need us to be advocates at every school around the state that is not providing a positive, affirming environment for LGBT families.
6. Parents who haven’t been able to complete second parent adoptions are losing custody of their children as a result of relationship break-ups. This isn’t healthy for our kids and is extremely painful for the parents.

These issues are what keep me working every day to champion the cause of LGBT families.”

-Kathy Kelly, Executive Director

MEGA Family Project

Kelly and the MEGA Family Project sent the e-mail to appeal for support for the organization. In particular, MEGA offers an option for donating called the “MEGA Family Champion.” By becoming a Family Champion, supporters choose to make automatic monthly contributions to this non-profit organization. In addition to the tax-deductibility of your donation, becoming a MEGA Family champion also brings you special discounts and other benefits throughout the year. (The MEGA Family Project is a 501(c)3 organization with the Internal Revenue Service, so your donation is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.) If you want to support MEGA but don’t feel comfortable with a monthly donation, you can make a one-time contribution here.

In addition to its advocacy efforts, MEGA holds monthly educational and social activities to strengthen the LGBT community of families. The organization is based in the Atlanta Metro, but works on advocacy issues and hosts social events throughout the state of Georgia. MEGA also maintains several different mailing lists where you can opt in to receive news and information on specific issues–including adoption, artificial insemination, and parenting, to name a few. And there are regional lists for communication among LGBT families in specific communities, including, for example a list for the Savannah area, Cobb County and North Fulton County. Thanks to Kathy Kelly, the MEGA Family Project staff and to Georgia’s LGBT families for their visibility and for the positive example they are. Because hate really is not a family value.

Gay Marriage Would Shrink Government Expenses and Grow Businesses

A new study reaffirms what many have proven:  there’s money in gay marriage.  It is a rational, pro-business argument for allowing gays and lesbians to marry.  Unfortunately, our politicians–both Republican and Democrat–long ago went deaf to reason. In advance of an anticipated January 2008 same-sex marriage debate by the Maryland legislature, the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law has released a study showing that gay marriage would put $3.2 million in that state’s coffers every year. The money would come from savings in expenditures on means-tested public benefit programs and an increase in sales and lodging tax revenue from gay weddings and wedding-related tourism. In addition, Maryland businesses would benefit. The report finds:

…if Maryland were to extend the right to marry to same-sex couples regardless of residency status, the State would not only experience a substantial increase in wedding spending by same-sex couples residing in Maryland, but it would also see an increase in wedding and tourist spending by same-sex couples from other states. We predict that sales revenues by Maryland’s wedding and tourism-related businesses would rise by over $94 million in each of the first three years after marriage is extended to same-sex couples.

Combined with the net gain in state revenue, that comes to almost one-third of a billion dollars in Maryland pockets in just three years.

Back in April 2004, during the height of the right-wing public relations assault on queers as a strategy for the election of George Bush and a conservative majority, Republican principle was quickly abandoned.  That year, Forbes magazine estimated  that gay marriage would bring a $16.8 billion windfall to business–everything from $196.7 million for cake to $217.2 million for invitations and stationary to $1.7 billion for honeymoons.  A couple of months later, the Congressional Budget Office reported that legal gay marriage in the U.S. would reduce state and federal expenses by almost one billion dollars a year for 10 years.  Shoot, for every year queers could marry, we could afford another three or four days of the Iraq war (currently costing American taxpayers an estimated $275 million a day).

Hmmm….gay marriage reduces government expenses and is good for business.  How do pro-business, small-government Republicans reconcile abandoning their political principles just to pander for religious-right votes?

Straight in Seattle: Lawsuit Mocks Progress for Washington’s Gay and Lesbian Couples

Washington State’s new domestic partnership law took affect yesterday, and already a heterosexual woman has filed suit because her live-in boyfriend was denied healthcare benefits by Honeywell, The Seattle Times reported. Sandi Scott-Moore’s lawsuit is one of the first of several filed because of the new law.  According to the newspaper, Washington has more than 600 employers offering some kind of domestic-partner benefit. Many prominent Washington companies offer benefit packages to married heterosexual couples as well as gay and lesbian couples, including Honeywell.  Few go the step further to define unmarried heterosexuals as domestic partners.

Citing census numbers, The Seattle Times estimated that nearly 36,000 heterosexual Washington couples live together outside of marriage, compared to an estimated 17,000 gay and lesbian couples. The state of Washington’s new law provides rights and responsibilities to registered domestic partners, which is defined as same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples with one partner age 62 or older. The specific reference to older opposite-sex couples was designed to include those who would lose pensions or similar benefits should they remarry.

Effective as of July 22, 2007, the Washington law establishes a statewide domestic partner registry and granted some specific rights, including hospital visitation, the right to make medical decisions when one partner is not competent, the right to inherit when a partner dies without a will, the right to be appointed administrator of a partner’s estate, the right to make funeral arrangements, and the right to bring a wrongful death lawsuit with regard to a deceased partner. (See the Human Rights Campaign’s Website for more specifics on marriage rights in Washington.)

There is an obvious lack of logic and fairness, though, in Sandi Scott-Moore’s lawsuit. How can a now former employee of Honeywell’s Redmond, Washington office sue because her relationship is not recognized? All she has to do is get married– a privilege that has always been available to her but is still denied to the state’s gay and lesbian couples.  A quick trip to the courthouse, and Scott-Moore instantly enjoy much more than the limited benefits of her state’s first attempt to treat LGBT persons as equals.  She could benefit from federal defense of her marriage nationwide.

Perhaps Scott-Moore is just a disgruntled former employee out to embarrass and harass a company that is considered one of the better guys in extending benefits and protections to its queer employees.  Or perhaps her case is a case-in-point that LGBT couples and the few freedom-minded legislators who seek to protect them face more and more barriers to basic government recognition of their relationships.

UPS Delivers Reality Check on Same-Sex Civil Unions

When United Parcel Service (UPS) denied health care coverage to a New Jersey lesbian couple, what brown did for the queer community was deliver a reality check on civil unions. In a July 8 article in The Star-Ledger of Newark, NJ reported that UPS sent a letter to employee Gabriael “Nickie” Brazier denying health care coverage to her domestic partner Heather Aurand. The reason? The letter reportedly explained that New Jersey’s decision to recognize same-sex relationships as civil unions, not marriage, tied the company’s hands.

The Star-Ledger article quoted several New Jersey state legislators and lawyers as surprised by the company’s actions, indicating that the issue may come back up in the 2008 legislative session. In fact, it is their surprise that is surprising.

Whether an excuse or a reason, the UPS decision points to the crux of the problem for those tempted to veer onto a path of compromise to accept the term “civil union” rather than “marriage.” The benefits UPS and others offer are governed by federal law. Thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act, federal law specifically defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

According to a report issued by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) in January of 1997 (shortly after the Defense of Marriage Act became law in 1996), there were 1,049 federal laws classified to the United States Code in which marital status is a factor. And that’s not even the whole story. In explaining their findings to Rep. Henry Hyde (who had requested the report), the GAO noted that “the Code is a compendium of “general and permanent” laws. Although appropriations and annual authorizations, for example, might contain references to marital status, they are typically in effect for a single year, and therefore do not appear in the Code.”

Seven years later, the GAO found 120 new references to marriage rights in an updated report in January 2004, bringing the number to 1,138.

What that creates is an on-going shell game for queers: find the discrimination under the moving shells of rules and regulations that move around regularly. When states like New Jersey enact legislation allowing civil unions, the effort is moot in any situation where federal law may apply.

State-by-state hate

And yes, it is even worse than that seems. According to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), individual states pile on more discrimination in their varying interpretation of the rights and responsibilities of marriage. GLAAD lists the state rights denied to same-sex couples as including:

• automatic inheritance
• child custody/parenting/adoption rights
• hospital visitation
• medical decision-making power
• standing to sue for wrongful death of a spouse
• divorce protections
• spousal/child support
• access to family insurance policies
• exemption from property tax upon death of a spouse
• immunity from being forced to testify against one’s spouse
• domestic violence protections and more.

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