Comedy Relief: Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

I gotta cold here, tripping out on cough meds and such, and feeling like crap warmed over. But this song always gives me a lift; it earned a gold record for Canadian group The Four Lads back in 1953. Maybe it will make you smile too.

Consumer warning: May stick to your brain, requiring surgical removal.

This Could Happen to You

Annie Liebovitz in front of one of her most famous photographs

Another reason marriage matters: let's say you finally do find your soulmate and settle down in that cozy little house/condo/cottage/doublewide/whatever, to live happily ever after, with the dogs and the picket fence and the plaster cupids, etc. And then one day when you get to the end of ever-after, he dies.

If the house is in his name, you better start packing your bags pronto, buster. You don't own it; his snarky relatives do. Oh they may be nice as pie right now while he's alive, they may fawn over you and proclaim loudly every chance they get how much they love you; but watch out for the knives as soon as he's gone. Trust me, I know.

Even if the house is in both your names, you're still on very shaky ground: it's not the relatives you have to worry about in that case, it's the IRS. You will have to pay up to FIFTY PERCENT of his share of the value in taxes. Yup. Even though your name is on it too.

Why? Because you aren't his widower; you guys were never legally married in the eyes of the law. You have no more rights than a stranger. Even if he left his share to you in a will, you still have to pay.

Stop and do the math: if it happened today, where would you get the cash to give the taxman? Or would you have to sell your home and slink away like a homeless person? Suppose it didn't sell for what you paid, or for what your equity is, or suppose you couldn't sell it for any price, as in today's market: what would you do?

The IRS is going to get what you owe them, of course; they can garnish your wages if need be. Or other financially devastating things.

That's why marriage matters. As it seems legendary photographer Annie Liebovitz has discovered. Granted, she's in a much higher financial bracket than most of us will ever be. But the principle is the same.

If you aren't married, then when one of you dies, the other one is crap in the eyes of the law. You have no rights to anything that was your partner's. Believe it.

From AfterEllen:

Out Vanity Fair photographer Annie Leibovitz recently took out a loan against her prized photographs in order to pay off her outstanding mortgage debt. Miss Leibovitz is not alone in suffering from the global economic crisis, but what struck me about her story was that most of her financial woes stemmed from her inheritance of her long time partner, Susan Sontag’s, estate.

As Suze Orman pointed out in her Valentine’s Day wish for gay marriage, same-sex couples do not have the same privileges as straight married couples when it comes to inheritance. If your partner passes away and leaves her estate to you, you have to pay up to 50 percent of the value of your inheritance in taxes. However, if you and your partner were recognized as a married couple, you wouldn’t have to pay a dime. And it is precisely this unjust double standard that got Annie Leibovitz into financial trouble.

When Sontag died in 2004, she bequeathed several properties to Leibovitz, who was forced to pony up half of their value to keep them. Yes, she makes a nice chunk of change from Vanity Fair, and yes, she probably could have just sold the properties when the market was good in 2004, but that’s not really the point. The point is she should never have been in the position of paying or selling to not pay as much in the first place. Her wealth and poor decision-making are incidental.

Hump Day

(Honk to Ray's Cowboy)

GLAD Challenges DOMA

Some people in the community don't understand what all the fuss is about. "Why should the government be in the business of recognizing anybody's marriage, straight or gay? Why not just drop the whole marriage issue for everybody" they say.

Because, dummy, marriage is not about cake and ice cream and oodles of nifty gifts from your adoring friends and relatives. It's about money and property and insurance and pensions and houses and cars and life and death and the equal protection of the laws. It's about all those things that make it possible to have a safe, secure life together.

The legal advocacy group GLAD has just filed suit in federal court in Boston on behalf of 8 married same-sex couples and 3 surviving spouses - including Dean Hara, the widower of openly gay Congressman Garry Studds - challenging the constitutionality of Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies to same-sex married couples in any state the rights and benefits of 1,138 federal laws that refer to marital status. Among those rights and benefits are:

* Social Security spousal protections that ground a family’s economic security while living in old age, and upon disability and death;

* protections for one spouse’s essential monetary resources and the ability to stay in the family home when the other spouse needs Medicaid for nursing home care;

* the ability to be included in a family policy of health insurance, and if receiving that family health insurance, to be free of income tax on the value of that insurance;

* the ability to use the “Married Filing Jointly” status for federal income tax purposes that can save families money;

* family medical leave from a job to care for a seriously ill spouse;

* disability, dependency or death benefits for the spouses of veterans and public safety officers;

* employment benefits for federal employees, including access to family health insurance benefits, as well as retirement and death benefits for surviving spouses;

* estate/death protections that allow a spouse to leave assets to the other spouse – including the family home – without incurring any taxes; and

* the ability of a citizen to obtain a visa for a non-citizen spouse and sponsor that spouse for purposes of citizenship.

GLAD was successful in filing court cases that eventually brought about same-sex marriage in both Massachusetts and Connecticut. Let's keep our fingers crossed on this one.

Hate Is Alive and Well

On Sunday night, three punks burst in to Robert's Lafitte, a gay bar in Galveston, and started stoning patrons, causing some serious injuries. The bar has both gay and straight patrons, and as I blogged about last fall, was a gathering point for survivors of the hurricane that devastated the island. Kudos to the police, who quickly arrested the perps.

Joe.My.God also has this horrible story of a double murder in a redneck corner of Spain, and the perp's acquital on a "gay panic" defense.

And still, we are the ones who are so awful, so sinful, so immoral? I don't think so.

DADT: "They Just Made It Up"

Rachel Maddow interviews Dr. Nathaniel Frank, author of Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Where No Storms Come

For various reasons, it's a really busy week here for me so I may not get much posted the next few days. I know you guys are keeping up with all the gay related news via the links in the righthand column; and then there's all the other news from around the nation and the world, and right at the moment it's all kind of depressing - stock prices, wars, assassinations, assorted other crimes, stupidity, foolishness, and selfishness everywhere you look, and everybody bitch-bitch-bitching about something.

Sometimes it gets to be a bit much to handle. Sometimes I just get a little overloaded with it all and have to retreat for a while to a nice quiet, peaceful spot in my mind where everything is tranquil and the world's noise isn't heard - can you relate?

A place like this:

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

Lovelight: Can't Stay Away from You

Sometimes you can't live with him but can't live without him either. You know how it goes. But it all works out eventually, one way or another. And life does go on.

The Blue Truck hit counter just turned over 20,000. Appreciate ya buddies. 'Night, guys.

Depression Cooking: Clara Cannucciari

Seems it's really not ever too late to become a big star, even at 93. Maybe you guys who live closer to civilization have already heard about Clara's cooking videos, but we just got holt of 'em out here on the prairie.

Love you, Clara! You go, girl.

Mood Music: Dreamboat Annie

Two versions of the same song here; I like the second one better. Just lovely; like the notes say, a tribute to strong, beautiful ladies everywhere. You rock.

Got to browsing through YouTube videos of the band Heart, one of my old favorites, and was amazed to discover so many great songs I'd nearly forgotten. Here's another of their classic hits, with a more rocking attitude; the video is too silly to watch, but the sound is great:

Sunday Drive: A Gift from God

I gave the roommate a copy of Mel's book, Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America, for Christmas. He's still working on it, says its a great read, he can relate to the whole thing.

You might also want to check out In the Life's online documentary "Ties That Bind," featuring interviews with White along with Bishop Gene Robinson, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, and Parvez Sharma, a gay Muslim filmmaker.