How being gay cost me $29,000

A Real Life, Actual Person, True Story Account of Why Marriage Equality is Important

Cristy and Ann live together and have for 1.5 years. They share a dog, a cat, meals, bills, sometimes clothes and, as it were, a bed. Ann works at Brown Mackie College and Brown Mackie College offers domestic partnership benefits. Yay Brown Mackie College, you rule!! This made Ann and Cristy very happy when Ann accepted this job because Cristy’s benefits through her own work are about as useful as my coat this winter (today it is 55 and sunny on February 2nd.) Happy smile faces all around! Picture the two running through a field of rainbows with giant lollypops and sunshine.

However, once Ann did the math, as she likes to do, it turns out things are not as groovy as they seemed. The Federal Government (hereto forward to be known as “Mad Old Man”) doesn’t recognize Ann and Cristy’s relationship as a Marriage or even as a Domestic Partnership. To Mad Old Man they are simply roommates who sin 2.5 times per week then go back to being roommates. Mad Old Man is even madder that Ann and Cristy could potentially enjoy benefits like Tuition Assistance and better health care like the perfect God-intended male/female couples do; so he puts a stop to their fun. TAXES!! He taxes all of the benefits that Ann and Cristy receive but not those of Adam and Eve (or Jane and Steve or Carrie and Cleve, etc, etc.) Now Ann and Cristy feel they are walking through a field of sad clowns with grey clouds overhead dumping rain only on their little gay heads. Even their dog and cat have sad faces.

If Cristy were Christopher or, say, Newt, then she could have had FREE college tuition! This would have saved Cristy and Ann $29,000 in student loans! Wowsers!! Oh wait, Cristy CAN have free college tuition because Brown Mackie College (yay!) provides that benefit to Domestic Partnerships and they have one of those. It is even notarized and everything!!

However, when factoring in Mad Old Man’s gay punishment, Ann and Cristy would have to pay taxes on the tuition at the end of the year, and they simply can’t afford that. So instead of getting free tuition for Cristy, we owe $29,000 in student loans to Mad Old Man’s cousin Sallie Mae. Mad Old Man is so mean but some of his children, most recently Washington State, are recognizing relationships of couples like Ann and Cristy. So hopefully, slowly but surely, one day all the committed couples in the Mad Old Man’s land will be happy in rainbow fields again!

The moral of this story is never let a Mad Old Man get you down. You go after him like the mob of villagers in Beauty and the Beast with pitchforks and glitter bombs (ok they didn’t have those but it would have been prettier.)