The soul has greater need of the ideal than the real for it is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Taxes death and change




Happy Tax day all you loving gay couples out there!

I hope you're enjoying the final day of our 2009 tax season. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you what you're getting for your bucks.

I will assume I'm average in the tax area, in that I paid $9500. in taxes this year. Yes almost ten grand went to Uncle Sam.

Let's see what I got for it.

1.) $4 a gallon gas for quite a while in 2008. Because we were being robbed by the very people we entrust our health and well being to, who deny us our civil rights at every turn.
2.) a war I never wanted that had nothing to do with anything but someone's daddy issues. A war I couldn't protest effectively because I have no civil rights.
3.) If my partner were to get sick and be hospitalized his family could STILL deny me visitation. Yes, the person with whom I share my life could lie in a bed and die without me being ALLOWED to be present, as though I were 12 and because I have no civil rights.
4.) I can't get married. Which in essence is true. Oh, I can go to Massachusets or Iowa, or Vermont and get hitched, but come tax season I'm still filing single. Becuse I have no civil rights.
5.) I pay taxes out my ass for schools I do not use. Yes I get money from education, but that's from WORKING FOR IT. I don't get any benefit at all for all the money that gets poured into schools from my pockets. And I can't protest this effectively beause I have no civil rights.
6.) I can be denied housing, health care, even my freedom if certain people could justify it. Because I have no civil rights.
7.) If my name were not on the deed to our home, when my partner who is in the hospital dying without me succumbs to whatever ailment he has, I can be summarily tossed out into the street by his family without any ANY of the articles we jointly owned. Our relationship means nothing, it can be denied once one of us is gone.
Because we have no civil rights.
8.) I have a job in education that could evaporate at any minute a. because we've been living in a fool's paradise for years and only now are beginning to realize that we don't actually have all the money they led us to believe we had. b. because if I were to be openly gay, not that I'm in the closet here, but it's just never talked about, but if I were to be openly gay and my new director who is a short little hispanic guy who obviously has little-man syndrome, and his counterpart who is from Oklahoma, didn't like that, they could toss me out on my ass and I would have no recourse. Because I have no civil rights.
9.) Someone, anyone, can beat me senseless on the street and leave me for dead, and likely the popular opinion would be, "Well, it was going to happen eventually. I mean you know how they are." and whoever beat me senseless could say that I tried to make advances on them and the popular opinion would be, "Well, he asked for it the stupid old queer." And nothing would be done. Because I have no civil rights.
10.) Were I a younger man and so inclined, I could enlist and serve in the Armed Forces of the United States. I could carry a gun, I could fight on the front lines. I could even die for my country if that were to come to pass. I could work in an area less fractious, I could serve in a capacity more fitting my delicate sensibilities should I find sympathetic superiors in whom I could confide. But out I'd go if they caught me making love to the very person to whom it's natural for me to love. No GI bill, no veterans benefits, in fact if I were dishonorably discharged I'd lose certain rights, for instance I could no longer own a gun. Because I suck dick?!?!?! Yes, because I suck dick. And also because I have no civil rights.

It would behoove us to remember these things every time we're told that our fight for civil rights is going to be put on the back burner because the President's plate is full. He still expects us to pay our taxes, he still expects us to give our lives for our country, but he's too busy to look into why we're treated as second class citizens every day in every way.

Because we have no civil rights.

Happy tax day.

Update: Please note that I've added two children to the list of hate crimes victims today. Hooray for free speech.