Messing with the IRS

News for the Week Ended April 6, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW


Messing With The IRS

There’s a grassroots effort underway to get married gay couples to file joint tax returns in violation of the Defense of Marriage Act. I have to confess, as a married lesbian, that the idea has some appeal.

On the other hand, as a tax phobe who dreads the annual bureaucracy and headache of filing taxes, the notion of deliberately screwing up my tax forms to make a political point is not attractive. Worse, I gather we’re supposed to go through a complex process as follows. First, file our taxes as single. Then, file a revised tax return as a married couple. Finally, wait six months to see how the IRS responds, and then file suit to collect any extra refund from the second set of tax returns.

To my brothers and sisters in the Struggle, I’m sorry. I just can’t handle it. The additional prospect of ending up with penalties, fees, interest, and having to spend extra bucks on professional tax assistance just adds to the horror of it all.

Finally, I’ve received my share of those scary envelopes from the IRS, informing me that I’ve made a mistake of some sort. I’m familiar with the unpleasant sensation of rifling through the mail and finding the kind of letter you just want to stuff under a pile of newspapers and forget about. But you can’t do that for long, and at last you tell yourself that not opening the damn thing will not actually change the reality of the situation. So you open it, take a deep breath, and check out the bottom line. Usually, it’s easier to pay it rather than hunt through your disorganized tax papers and make a challenge. But still. The whole process is best avoided.
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Go Kloppenburg!

So, I stayed up until two in the morning watching the results from the Wisconsin Supreme Court election where the hardcore conservatives who are trying to drive out unions confronted the outraged progressives who are trying to save their state. The avatars for these two factions, David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg, ended up neck and neck and will likely face a recount. With all districts reporting, Kloppenburg led by about 200 out of about 1.5 million votes.

And before I move on, I have a confession. After pooh-poohing the radiation fears from the Japanese nuclear disaster, I was finally brought up short by the idea of radioactive fish. Put me the group of those who will be avoiding imports of fish from Japan, although I’m not sure how you figure out which little fishy came from which country. Maybe I’ll just stick to river trout.

I’m in a mood to ramble rather than report, so let me get a couple of actual news items out of the way. Remember the civil union bill in Colorado? You can forget about it now, since it got killed in a house committee.

There’s another Congressional hearing on the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell set for Thursday before the full House Armed Services Committee. I’m still unclear on the Republican agenda, and I assume there’s little they can do to derail the repeal process. But it’s still annoying to watch them try.

Even though DADT is technically still in effect, there have been no discharges this year. Last week, the Navy dropped proceedings against a gay sailor, basically accepting the de facto change in policy.

And Equality California is again wondering whether or not to start a petition drive to put a repeal of Prop 8 on the 2012 ballot. Now that it seems the legal battle to end Prop 8 will stretch well into next year, if not beyond, we may be back to square one—or whatever square we were on two years ago. What do you think? I think it sounds exhausting, but perhaps necessary.
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Where’s the House DOMA Defense?

Speaking of legal battles, the House leadership has yet to announce the details of their new legal role in defending the Defense of Marriage Act. Weeks have gone by since a Congressional task force voted to defend the law in court in view of the Justice Department’s decision to stop arguing in favor of the federal ban on recognizing same-sex marriage, and yet we’ve heard noting more about it. Indeed, a group of gay allies in the House just sent a letter to Speaker Boehner asking for some explanations.

Will the House general counsel defend DOMA? Will they hire outside lawyers? How much will this cost? Will the House ask to intervene in the various pending DOMA cases? Or will they just file briefs as friends of the court?

Given that one of the judges in one of those pending cases has set an April 18 deadline for a House motion to intervene, one would think that some people are working on the issue, but to date we don’t know who that might be or what they might be doing. It’s interesting as well that John Boehner does not seem to welcome his new role as the leader of the culture war. Indeed, John Boehner does not seem particularly happy about his professional life in general at this point, evincing a level of discomfort that sort of speaks well of him.
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Monkey Business

Here’s a disappointing development. A few months back I bookmarked a story about gay monkeys, and when I tried to retrieve it just now, it was gone. I forget what it said, and my only clue is the bookmark title: “reat for gay monkeys.”

Oh, good news! I found it. “Special Valentine treat for gay monkeys” was the actual headline, and although it’s no longer timely, it’s still a lovely account of two spider monkeys named Elton and David, who live at the Drayton Manor Theme Park in Staffordshire. They reportedly became a couple about a year ago. Or at least, that’s when keepers noticed them hugging and fooling around. Sadly, I can’t find out what the special treat was. I’m guessing bananas.

By the way, as usual I’m watching MSNBC in the background. It turns out that Japanese fish is safe, as long as it’s not from the nuclear plant area. Plus, food safety people are checking imports for radiation just in case.

Wonder whether those government food safety people will be on the job next week? Aw. Who needs government? We’ll just police our own sushi, thank you very much. All we need is a lab and Abby from NCIS. Or maybe there’s an iPhone ap we can use.
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Queer As Mice

In other gay animal news, I was struck by a Dallas Voice article about the connection between serotonin levels and same-sex attraction in male mice. Turns out that if you take away serotonin receptors and put a bunch of male mice together, they are all over each other. Once you give them back their receptors, they’re straight as arrows.

“Do we care” asked the gay weekly? After all, we’ve been debating the nature versus nurture question for decades, with our side usually insisting that we are not “gay by choice.”

This debate seems animated in part by the idea that if a characteristic is congenital and unchanging, discrimination on the basis of that characteristic is somehow worse than discrimination based on something more fluid. Indeed, “immutability” is one consideration courts have used to increase the level of scrutiny for laws that target a particular group.

But the question of gay immutability is a distraction from the real issue. Should you have to change or hide your sexual orientation in order to be treated equally? Of course not. Even if a simple shot of some chemical could someday turn us all into heterosexuals, such a notion is as repellent as the idea of forcing people to change their faith in order to suit a majority view.

And what if we could change our sexual orientation as easily as we change our hair color? Would it be wrong for some people to elect such a procedure? I guess I’d say that if they’re that unhappy, who am I to tell them what to do about it? But before we can assume that breezy attitude, we must create a society where being gay is easy, accepted and respected.

By the way, isn’t serotonin a happy thingy? I’d think that you’d be more gay if you had more serotonin. We all know that being gay is inherently more fun. The piano bars, the Pride parades, the glamour, the Fight for Equality!
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Gauguin Gets Gay Bashed

So, did you hear about the 50-something woman who attacked “Two Tahitian Women,” a painting by Paul Gauguin, at the National Gallery? The woman tried to pull the $80 million painting off the wall, and then tried to punch it, screaming “This is evil!” the Associated Press reports.

She later explained: “I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it's very homosexual. I was trying to remove it. I think it should be burned.”

She also said she was from the CIA, had a radio in her head, and was planning to kill the police. I gather that she is being held without bail pending a psych evaluation.

The painting wasn’t damaged in Friday’s incident, and it’s expected back on the wall by Tuesday. That’s assuming that the staff of the National Gallery is working next week.
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Maintaining Self Control

Let’s see what else we can discuss this afternoon. (And you should know that these random items are my attempt to finish this column without going into an enraged diatribe against the House of Representatives. If I start I won’t be able to stop.)

So anyway, there’s a fight over whether or not gay couples should have the chance to adopt in Virginia, but I’ll save that for another week.

There’s some gay bashing news, but I find that subject depressing. And I think I cruised by a story out of Australia, where a maniac murdered his possibly gay ex-roommate in a violent knife attack. The killer told his pals that he once drank blood during a cannibal ritual. I don’t remember the exact details, but if you’re interested, try googling “Brisbane cannibal.”

And I was happy to read that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that Wal-Mart was within its legal rights when it fired an employee who directed a homophobic rant at several of her colleagues. The fired worker had tried to claim that her termination was a case of religious discrimination. But the court didn’t buy it

Look. You can’t be fired just because you’re Christian. You can’t be fired because you take a personal day on Yom Kippur. But you certainly can be fired if you launch a full blown screaming verbal attack at the expense of a minority group, whether Black or gay or whatever. And you can’t say the Bible made you do it. Good for the 7th Circuit.

Here’s another interesting story to wind down our column. Archeologists in Prague have discovered a gay caveman or trans cavewoman, a male who was buried in a fashion usually reserved for females.

The skeleton was facing east, and surrounded by urns and jugs. During this period, around 2900 to 2500 BC, men were buried facing west, and their graves were stocked with weapons and food. Women were laid to rest facing east, with pots and jewelry. Experts said that since burial rites were taken seriously, the male skeleton’s grave suggested not only that he was either gay or trans, but that the community respected his (or her) identity.

Don’t tell me that society was more advanced in 2900 BC than it is now.

Oh, and let’s give credit for a pretty good joke to the decadent egomaniac who runs Italy, and who is now defending himself in court against charges that he had sex with an underage prostitute (along with dozens of other hired women).

Silvio Berlusconi announced that a national survey firm had asked Italian women if they would like to sleep with him. According to the 70-something prime minister, 30 percent said “Yes,” and 70 percent said: “What? Again?”

Don’t get me wrong. The man’s still a fool. Much like the members of the GOP majority in the House of Representatives.
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arostow@aol.com