Your situation is all the more reason for passage of the . . .Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) (H.R.1024 (Nadler+119)/ S.424 (Leahy+23)) or the better Reuniting Families Act (the UAFA itself is Title II of this more inclusive bill) (H.R.2709 (Honda+79) (no Senate equivalent yet).

And I understand the necessity of not being entirely honest on the customs formUnless your spouse is a lawful premanent resident already, the feds would use your acknowledged marriage or domestic partnership as proof that your spouse has an intention to overstay.

Any official documentWhether it’s filling out tax forms, forms at a doctor’s officer, or any legal/official document that asks your marital status, I have to lie, since I am legally married in Canada. But that doesn’t count here. Sometimes I get angry and defiantly list myself as married and add a parenthetical “in Canada,” which is kind of degrading.  Sometimes I’ll just check off “married” and list my spouse as my spouse.  But it’s a constant confrontation with the second class citizenship. How much more wonderful to enter Canada and say, “We’re married” or answer tot he question, “Where are you going?” say “To celebrate our anniversary in —-   On my last trip back from Canad when the border guard asked what we were doing traveling together, I said,m “We live together” and was about to say “We’re married,” but his complicit smile and half-wink told me he got it…..

Noncitizen spousesI’ve known people with noncitizen heterosexual spouses, who have had bureaucratic tangles with immigration officials that could result in the spouse being in a Kafkaesque limbo; that problem isn’t unique to same-sex spouses.  However, I gather the “hetero” kind do get greater rights for the citizen spouse in his/her attempts to navigate this bureaucracy.

It’s called heterosexual privilegeAnd it affords straight, unmarried couples far greater respect in their lives than we as queer people will ever receive in ours.
It’s Nice To Be Straight

I had a conversation today about an acquaintance going in for a minor surgery. Her fiance, a colleague of mine, is driving her to the hospital and needs to be present in case the surgery is not fully successful and he has to give consent for additional procedures.
PD: Do you have power of attorney for her?
Fiance: No, we’re not married yet.
Another colleague: Who else would it be? You’re engaged.
Fiance: And her parents aren’t here, so, yeah.
I’m not sure if the fiance will be able to make medical decisions while the fiancee is out under anesthesia, if he doesn’t formally hold power of attorney and isn’t her health care proxy. Nor do I wish for her to be stuck under anesthesia without anyone around who can speak for her and see that her wishes are followed.
However, the sheer, stunning heterosexual privilege took my breath away with how ordinary it was. It is so easy to be straight in this country. You can assume that because you’re engaged, people will take your relationship seriously. You can assume that because you’re engaged, people will think that you can speak for your significant other or at the very least ought to be consulted. You can assume that because you’re engaged, your opinion about what happens to that person will matter more than that of a random person on the street. You and your relationship are treated as if they matter to the person on the operating table. Whether or not you have any formal powers, you don’t have to worry that they will be challenged as a matter of course-the default assumption is that people will consider that relationship valid and as having legal weight rather than that people will refuse to give any credence to it whatsoever and fight tooth and nail against acknowledging it.

We have all the legal paperwork downAnd not one doctor fucks with us. We disarm them with our POA form before they even ask. I even stayed overnight with my partner in the hospital after she had surgery. No questions asked. Fuck them. I put down domestic partner on every single goddamn form. My partner just says “wife” everywhere. Now, when I go to the doctors affiliated with the same hospital, I’m already in the computer system==and they have domestic partner down. I don’t particularly care for “wife” as it reminds me of heterosexuality. I like partner or spouse. But that’s just my preference.

Wills and everything elseIt made me laugh years ago when my married brother recommended I make a will. “Done that,” I said.  And then talked about living will and POA, neither of which had ever crossed his mind……

“forces young men and women to lie about who they are”I’ve always been of the view that someone who currently enlists is by definition a deceiver and a practiced liar (and DADT rewards for that characteristic). You will find that every time one of them comes out (e.g. Dan Choi), the first thing they cite is their inability to keep lying.

not at all.enlistees are not asked whether they’re gay or straight.  nice that you have such a high opinion of gays who would serve the country though.

If you lie and file as a married couplethat’s a felony under DOMA and brave Mr. Mueller of Chicago went to Federal prison for it.  He is the only one that felt really passionate.  I am paying my taxes and ending the protest.  Fuck LGBT civil disobedience.  Activism has turned into forming a non profit business model and raising funds only to lose.  That is not activism just whining.

SNLVia Raw Story, someone playing Ollie North on SNL asked:

“If we give gay men and gay women equal rights, pretty soon we’ll be giving all Americans equal rights, and then where will we be?”

Well, maybe it’s time for……Stonewall II: THE WRECKONING.  :-D

1 million strong for gay marriageThe numbers keep doubling–join the FB group:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pag…

TaxesMy wife and I file as “married filing separately”.  For state and federal taxes.  I won’t lie for them, if they offered a “we don’t recognize your marriage” box, we’d check it.  
But they’ll owe us money if they audit us.  We’ve done the taxes both ways every year and we’re paying more as a married couple.  But that’s what we are.  

I always hate the married/aingle tickboxes….As many of you have, I have had issues with these status boxes and the reactions from my choice in selecting an option.
It would have been interesting to have had a couple of witnesses in the recent prop 8 trial speak about this.  Seems like one more nail in the coffin.    (I followed the trial and if they did speak of it, I missed it.)

that’s married/single…..…wishing there was a short-time edit button for those of us who are poor proofreaders!

Trudy and I are filing this year as marriedWe got a New York marriage license on the “minor technicality” of my birth certificate not being amended.
Perhaps based on our names, I anticipate the possibility that the IRS might make a DAM (Defense Against MArriage)mistake and object to our filing jointly, but I don’t think we can be successfully persecuted, err, prosecuted. I would be happy to self-represent.
It was tough enough having to get a court order to force the NYC Bureau of Vital Records to cough up a copy of my birth certificate, just to get the marriage license, and to have the application for a marriage license rejected by the idiot City Clerk in White Plains before it was granted by the New York City Clerk in Manhattan(after a three hour wait for the NYC Clerk’s counsel to get a second opinion).
It was annoying having to explain to the medical insurer that we are actually legally married.
It will be annoying in the future in a lot of circumstances, but that’s what happens when we happen to be different than what people expect.  The IRS is just going to have to get used to it, or else.

Some IRS agents are not awareI had one ask why didn’t I file jointly since I was married in California.  I said, “ever hear of DOMA?”  Good for you challenging discrimination.

My most recent Customs experienceWe were coming off a cruise ship and the Customs agent mentioned that my in-laws, my husband and I could have just gone together as a single party with a single declaration.
Then again, at the same port, an unmarried (but self-declared engaged) heterosexual couple was allowed through jointly as well.
Another time, at the Canadian border, the agent was having issues with an unemployed man driving alone going several hundred miles through Canada to get to another state (I had to go around the Great Lakes and wanted to visit a friend in Canada on the way). He finally let me go after a cursory inspection of my trunk and confirming, “So he is supporting you.”
I’m all for acts of civil disobedience, but getting fined/detained by DHS or the IRS isn’t useful or beneficial to the cause. Civil disobedience is about garnering publicity and you have to know exactly what you’re doing.
I’m increasingly getting the impression that the bureaucrats see the rules as insane and are quietly relaxing enforcement. All the same, I prefer to avoid the fines and paperwork.

I got detained once by US Border guards for being unemployedand for having stamps from some eastern African countries in my passport.  I had been traveling alone in Canada for several weeks, sightseeing.  I fail to see the suspicious nature of my then-situation, but it did teach me to never offer any more information to border guards than necessary.  At the time, I could have just used my drivers license and not the passport.  Silly me for thinking openness and honesty was the best policy.