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You Can Forget My Taxes
Singer Melissa Etheridge rails against the passage of the gay-marriage ban in California—and she won't be paying the state a dime.
Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.
Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay! I am sure there will be a little box on the tax forms now single, married, divorced, gay, check here if you are gay, yeah, that's not so bad. Of course all of the waiters and hairdressers and UPS workers and gym teachers and such, they won't have to pay their taxes either.
Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.
Oh and too bad California, I know you were looking forward to the revenue from all of those extra marriages. I guess you will have to find some other way to get out of the budget trouble you are in.
…Really?
When did it become okay to legislate morality? I try to envision someone reading that legislation "eliminates the right" and then clicking yes. What goes through their mind? Was it the frightening commercial where the little girl comes home and says, "Hi mom, we learned about gays in class today" and then the mother gets that awful worried look and the scary music plays? Do they not know anyone who is gay? If they do, can they look them in the face and say "I believe you do not deserve the same rights as me"? Do they think that their children will never encounter a gay person? Do they think they will never have to explain the 20% of us who are gay and living and working side by side with all the citizens of California?
I got news for them, someday your child is going to come home and ask you what a gay person is. Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.
I know when I grew up gay was a bad word. Homo, lezzie, faggot, dyke. Ignorance and fear ruled the day. There were so many "thems" back then. The blacks, the poor ... you know, "them". Then there was the immigrants. "Them.” Now the them is me.
I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one, one of the thems made it to the top. Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no "them". We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to yourself. That "judge not, lest ye yourself be judged" are truthful words and not Christian rhetoric.
Today the gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not going to leave it. Even though we could be married in Mass. or Conn, Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries, this is our home. This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will not rest until we have the full rights of any other citizen. It is that simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us, that is not the American way.
Come to think of it, I should get a federal tax break too...
Melissa Etheridge is an Academy Award-winning and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
Justice Clinton?
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
Keep Your Laws Off My Family
Melissa Etheridge is an Oscar- and Grammy-winning singer-songwriter.
Kathykeon
Thank you Melissa for all that you have done and continue to do for the GLBT community. .
MaelwysII
Amen to that! I'm from New York, but I'm planning on moving with him when he gets into Med school. We were thinking about California...now we're a little disheartened. But I agree: the fight goes on.
planetmike
I can not believe this happened in Cali. How consenting adults wish to live their private lives is none of the government's business. There should have been a proposition to tax religious properties.
masanf
Wow, what logical consistency. You believe banning gay marriage is unconstitutional, so what is your solution? Taxing churches, something that is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, unconstitutional. You go Socrates.
scobyx
i -think- that was the point he was trying to make?
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Porbie
How eloquently stated. How can anyone in their right mind not read this and see the light.
neerajamb
Melissa, I am extremely sorry at this latest show of bigotry by what I thought was one of the most liberal states in the US. I have no idea how you can put up some question of right to equality to vote. I am sure that if put to vote, Browder vs Gayle too would have lost public favour in Alabama in 1956. Equality is a basic right promised by the Constitution, interpreted by the Supreme Court. It is neither fair nor right to allow that right to be repealed by anyone, much less by a plebiscite. I am also distressed that majority of blacks voted against Prop 8. One would think it is easier for a community long repressed to understand discrimination. I hope California redeems itself sooner than later, just as the country has itself (by voting Obama).
masanf
The country redeemed itself by voting for Obama? Give me a break. Seriously does the levelling of groveling know no bounds?
farmboysf
You
go
girl!
spreadthelove
Uh, MattyfromtheBX, I'm not gay myself, but you are an idiot. Why do gay people have to convince people that gay marriage will "benefit society" in some way? There is no sane, rational argument for how gay marriage harms society. And you seem to agree that gay people should be allowed to get married, but you think they shouldn't have the right because they haven't argued for it the right way? WTF!? Any by Melissa Ethridge writing that she doesn't want to pay her taxes because she doesn't have the same rights isn't sensationalizing the issue, she is making a point. She is angry and has a right to be angry. Why should gay people settle for a "civil union" with the "same rights". What if black people were told to settle for a civil union. Interracial marriage between a white and black person used to be outlawed. It wasn't okay for a black man and white woman or black woman and white man to be allowed to have a "civil union", the law changed to allow for them to get married. Why can't gay people have the same rights?
scough
No, gay people are born "every day." Not "everyday."
DrumBoogie
O.C.D.
satyricaldude
MattyfromtheBX, I believe Ms. Etheridge is venting here. This is not intended to be a well-reasoned argument in favor of gay marriage. Calm yourself.
GregersonA
Melissa -
I believe you may be missing the point here.
I will make a couple of things clear first. One. I am not a resident of California, nor do I ever hope to be. That being said, I did not vote for or against Prop 8. Two. While I am not gay, I do have many friends in the gay community. With that being said, do not take my remarks as anti-gay.
The piont of my comment is this: simply because a proposition passed opposite of your favor not allowing your union with your wife to be consdiered legal by the state does not open the door for you to stop paying your state (or federal, for that matter) income taxes. Those taxes contribute to paying for services that you and the others in the gay population of California use on a day to day basis, along with your family. Denying funds for these services, in my mind, means that you no longer plan to use them, and therefore are leaving the state of California.
I would also argue your comment about being considered a second-class citizen becuase of this. If I am correct, you and your wife wed long before California passed the legislation to make your union recognized by the state. Did you consider yourself to be second-class at the point of your marriage? I'm going with no.
I encourage you to pick yourself up and fight for your rights. However, following through on your claim not to pay your state income taxes is rediculous. After all...government moves slow enough...do you want this process to move even slower due to a lack of funding?!
Catch22
Wow that was a brilliant comment by MattyBX....I agree about the civil union being the same in principal as a marriage (at least as far as I know). Also, Melissa you do technically have the same rights as everyone else: you can get married. You just have to marry someone of the opposite sex. Now don't get me wrong, I am pro-gay marriage because the government shouldn't regulate that sort of thing. But like Matty points out, the arguments here are deeply flawed. I really REALLY hope the Cali revenue service comes after you if you don't pay your taxes. That is ridiculous, and guess what I had to pay taxes before I had the "right" to purchase alcohol or the "right" to vote. Should we be exempt from taxes until we are 18 or 21 and "have the same rights as everyone else"? My last issue with this suprising vote was that Florida and California voted for Obama (a Dem) and then voted against gay marriage?! WTF?! Gay marriage is arguably the most innocuous of Democratic positions. At least as opposed to abortion or socialized healthcare.
tomthumb
I registered just to leave a comment on this piece.
Although I am not gay, I feel your frustration and anger.
Kisses and hugs to you and your family. And don't stop fighting! Not when you've come this far!
Catch22
Uh satyricaldude, if she wants to vent she can blog or call her mommy. I would thumbs down this article if it were on the Cheat Sheet if as you say it doesn't have to be a well-reasoned article. And spreadthelove: the point about gay people settling for civil union if it gives the same rights as marriage is that Melissa's argument loses all value and merit if she is not in fact being denied any rights except the right use the word marriage....and finally neerajamb black people voted to keep gay marriage by a margin of roughly 2 to 1 in California. Check your facts.
MaelwysII
Matty -
1. I think it's great when someone refers to another group as a unit, as in "the gays". You don't hear much talk about "the straights".
2. Prohibiting murder is not legistlating morality: it is weighing the rights of two individuals and indicating that one person does not have the right to infringe upon another's right to live.
Sorry, try again.
Thank you.
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