Anti-Gay Laws Lead to Financial Woes for LGBT People

A new report confirms what many of us in the LGBT community have know for some time: anti-LGBT laws result in harm to LGBT individuals.  The Christofascists may claim that the don't "hate" gays but the consequences of their anti-gay animus motivated laws tell a far different story.  Anti-gay laws have ALWAYS been about harming gays and punishing us for not embracing the sick, neurotic religious beliefs of the Christofascists.  A new report by the Center for American Progress and the pro-LGBT Movement Advancement Project reveal the harm done by laws backed by the "godly Christian" crowd.  Here are some highlights from NBC News:

Shortly after her wife died in March, Arlene Goldberg had to give up the beloved South Florida home that the couple shared. Because Goldberg’s 2011 marriage to her partner of 47 years wasn’t recognized as legal in Florida, she was denied her wife’s social security benefits. 

Without that income, Goldberg, 67, couldn’t pay her mortgage. “I’m trying to figure out how I am going to get through this time,” she said from Fort Myers, Florida. “I really can’t even pay my bills.”

Goldberg is among an untold number of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people nationwide who suffer economic distress and in some cases, poverty, as a result of anti-gay laws such as same-sex marriage bans, or from a lack of legal protections, like non-discrimination ordinances, according to a new report by two think tanks, the progressive Center for American Progress and the pro-LGBT Movement Advancement Project. 

 

Census data and other research over the last decade have shown higher rates of financial hardship and poverty among gays. But the report’s authors make the connection between those difficulties and specific laws and policies by analyzing current incomes and poverty rates for LGBT people and their heterosexual counterparts in states that have protections and those that don’t. 

“You’ve got all of these laws that have indisputable economic impact,” said Ineke Mushovic, executive director of MAP. “In all these states that have the bad laws we actually are seeing lower incomes and higher rates of poverty (for gays) that is disproportionate to what’s happening with their heterosexual peer comparison.”

Key findings from the report, “Paying an Unfair Price,” include: 

- Same-sex couples raising children made about $10,000 less a year than their heterosexual peers in states banning same-sex marriage, whereas incomes for the two groups were almost at parity in states allowing gay nuptials, according to analysis of 2012 U.S. Census data. 

- Lesbian couples suffer a double financial hit due to their sexual orientation and the gender wage gap: In 2010, 7.6 percent of lesbian couples were poor compared to 5.7 percent of heterosexual couples and 4.3 percent of gay couples. 

- A study of transgender Americans revealed they were nearly four times more likely to have a household income under $10,000 per year than the overall population (15 percent versus 4 percent). 

-- And 29 percent of gay adults earlier this year said they were thriving financially, compared to 39 percent of heterosexual adults.

“When you’re thinking about anti-LGBT laws, people don’t really understand the real consequences that has on people’s survival, their ability to put food on the table, the ability to pay the rent.” 

Mushovic said the marriage bans and lack of legal protections needed to be viewed as a package, because of how they interacted to trigger a series of financial difficulties. For example, no marriage recognition generally means no shared health insurance for gay couples.

Some of the financial assistance that can be denied gays in states without same-sex marriage includes spousal, veteran and disability benefits, survivor’s pension and the ability to file joint taxes or claim a family tax credit. The denial of such resources hurts the most vulnerable, such as families, older adults and those already struggling financially, Mushovic said.

There's more.  Read the entire piece.  The take away is that Christofascists (and their political whores in the GOP) hate gays regardless of their lip service about "loving the sinner."  Worse yet, they hate the children of gays and continue to back laws that harm our children. 

Justice Department will Extend More Rights to Married Same Sex Couples

In yet another move to bring married same sex couples to the same level in legal rights as heterosexual couples, Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that  the Department of Justice will be extending additional federal rights to married same sex couples.  The move is consistent with legal equality for all married couples but will not doubt further rankle the hate merchants of the Christofacists and trigger batshitery from their political whores in the Republican Party.  The Washington Blade looks at this development. Here are excerpts:

[T]he Justice Department will issue a memorandum on Monday to outline the changes, which will bring the department into compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision against the Defense of Marriage Act.

Holder . . . . [made] the announcement in the same speech in which he . . . .[reflected] on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“And yet, as all-important as the fight against racial discrimination was then, and remains today, know this: my commitment to confronting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity runs just as deep,”  . . . . “Just like during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the stakes involved in this generation’s struggle for LGBT equality could not be higher.”

Each of the changes is related to the way the Justice Department handles recognition of married same-sex couples. They range from rights in civil and criminal cases, rights as inmates and access to benefits programs:

• The Justice Department will recognize that same-sex spouses of individuals involved in civil and criminal cases have the same legal rights as straight married couples, including the right to decline to give testimony that might incriminate a spouse.
This new rule applies in non-marriage equality states. The government won’t object to couples in same-sex marriages invoking this right if they marry in another state, but their current jurisdiction doesn’t recognize their union.

• In bankruptcy cases, the U.S. Trustee Program will take the position that same-sex married couples should be treated in the same manner as opposite-sex married couples. Consequently, same-sex married couples will be eligible to file for bankruptcy jointly; certain debts to same-sex spouses or former spouses will be excepted from discharge; and domestic support obligations should include debts, including alimony, owed to a former same-sex spouse.

• Federal inmates in same-sex marriages will be entitled to the same rights and privileges as inmates in opposite-sex marriages. These rights include spousal visitation; inmate furloughs to be present during a crisis involving a spouse; escorted trips to attend a spouse’s funeral; correspondence with a spouse; and compassionate release or reduction in sentence if an inmate’s spouse is incapacitated.

• The Justice Department will recognize same-sex couples for the purposes of a number of benefits programs it administers, such as the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program and the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.

Also among these programs is the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program, which provides death benefits to surviving spouses of public safety officers, such as law enforcement officers and firefighters, who suffer catastrophic or fatal injuries while on duty.

The Justice Department has coordinated the effort across the Obama administration to ensure married same-sex couples have the same rights and benefits under federal law as opposite sex couples in the wake of the DOMA decision. The various departments and agencies announced changes in policies since that time.

The New York Times has coverage here.  The Christofascist goal to keep LGBT citizens inferior under the law is slowly but steadily being destroyed.  Its total destruction cannot come soon enough, especially in anti-gay states like Virginia.