Judecorp.

tell me about your most recent interaction with homophobia and how you dealt with it.

and then give yourself a hug, because i wish i could. i think you are amazing.

Awwh, I love you too! Big big love!!

We don't see a lot of homophobia around these parts. I mean in my day-to-day. We live in a pretty queer area, attend a queer-friendly church, and reside in the only state in the US that has marriage equality. So we don't really have to worry much, here, about hospital visiting and all of that. Which is nice. And usually people don't yell things like, "No gay marriage for f*cking gays!" like when we lived in Columbus.

But I guess the most recent thing was filing our taxes. Our taxes are such a HUGE pain in the butt because we are legally married in Massachusetts, yet the Federal Government does not recognize our marriage because of the Federal DOMA (thank you, Mr. Clinton). So we have to file a joint return to the state, and individual returns for the Feds. This means:

1. We can't file everything online because the online programs assume you have the same info for Feds and State, and we don't. So we do paper returns or we choose one to file online.

2. We have to do twice the work because first we do the separate returns, and then we have to RE-do it like we were filing jointly so we can import the data into the state return.

3. When it comes to the Fed return, we have to decide who claims the house interest deduction, who claims the baby, etc. And then run the risk of audit if they think it's weird that different women claim the kid in different years.

And honestly? It's unconstitutional and wrong that the Feds can do this, or that we have to have Jen adopt her own child even though she is already on the birth certificate because other states can do this, too. The Constitution has a Fair Faith and Credit clause that guarantees that if something is legal in one state, the other states have to go along with it. You know, except if your talking about marriage between a couple of dirty queers.

How do I deal with the tax thing? I get really annoyed. Really really annoyed.

Every year I say I'm going to include a letter with my taxes that states that I should be filing a joint return and paying more taxes but because the Feds refuse to recognize my legal marriage, they are losing out on some extra Big Gay Taxes. But... I never do. Because when push comes to shove I just want to get my returns in and get my money.

There was a post on strangeland.net recently about Brokeback Mountain which sparked a conversation, of course, on the morality (or lack thereof) of homosexuality. At one point, the original poster answered a comment and stated that he believed homosexuality is wrong (which is fine) and that it should be re-criminalized. And I was just so stunned.

Even though I know it's ridiculous to make the comparison, I always become sad when people equate same-sex relationships with murder and pedophilia. I just don't see how someone, even someone that doesn't know me more than what I do for a living and some of my political leanings, can compare me to a murderer or want to make me a criminal.

It just breaks my heart. Maybe I wouldn't care as much if morality and being a good person weren't so important to me, but I can't help it. I'm heartbroken.

We used to be big Stephenie fans in our house, but today she busted out the forbidden "that's so gay" to describe another player's stupid behavior and that's it - she's out of our fan club.

Sayonara, Stephenie. You and your homophobic whininess can leave Guatemala at any time. We'll start rooting for Amy instead.