PAOO Make Bay Windows - Next Stop Ellen

Originally published on Passive Activities and Other Oxymorons on March 11th, 2011.
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If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is "no legitimate state interest" for purposes of proscribing that conduct...what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising "the liberty protected by the Constitution"? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry.

When I started this blog, I didn't think I would be focusing on GLBT issues and actually I'm not.  There is a tax blog that does.  It is called Santa Clara Law Same Sex Tax Law Blog.  I'm largely driven by my raw material.  It does work out however that of my top ten posts in terms of traffic, three are of GLBT interest.

My top ranked post concerns the deductibility of gender reassignment surgery.  It owes its popularity to endorsements by two friends, noted science fiction author John Sundman and activist Cecilia Chung.  John and I attended the same high school a million years ago.  An even more famous alumnus of the same high school wrote the passage that is quoted above. Cecilia and I are on the board of Just Detenion International, which is dedicated to ending sexual abuse in all forms of detention.

My sixth ranked post is about an IRS ruling (CCA 201021050) that holds that registered domestic partners in community property states should be splitting their income.  The ruling made filing amended returns for prior years optional.  I introduced Robin and Terry, the couple of indeterminate gender, who help me get around awkward pronoun problems.  The question I ask is what happens if Robin files for a refund and Terry doesn't file a balance due return.  The Santa Clara Law people are not as evil minded as I am.  At any rate, I was one of the first bloggers to notice that ruling and it inspired in me the fantasy that is the subject of this post.

My ninth ranked post (and climbing) is on Gill v OPM, in which the Federal District Court of Massachusetts ruled that Section 3 of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) is unconstitutional. Section 3 of DOMA holds that regardles of state law marriage for all federal purposes is between a man and a woman and spouse means someone of the opposite sex.  Among the plaintiffs in Gill were some people who would have saved money if they had been able to file joint returns. I make the point that people who might benefit from this ruling need to file refund claims before the statute of limitations expires.  2007 is looming.

So the grand announcement is that the post on amended returns has been republished by Bay Windows, New England's premier gay newpaper.  So that brings the fantasy I had when I first put up the comment on the then very obscure CCA 201021050 - an interview on the Ellen Degeneres show - one step closer to reality.  Also by comparing the Bay Window version to my original you can see how good this blog would be with some professional editing.

Just to show you that there are depths of self absorption beyond blogging about your owns blog, I'm going to explain the quotation above that has been used to support gay marriage with a pointless anecdote from my high school.  The faculty of Xavier High School consisted of Jesuit priests, scholastics (who were on the way to becoming Jesuit priests), lay teachers, who were like regular guys and  the Military Science faculty.  Xavier, at that time, required all students to be in Junior ROTC.  The Military Science faculty consisted of an active duty Army officer and a couple of active duty senior NCO's and a few more retired NCO's.  With the exception of Father Hareiss, who had been drafted into the Wehrmacht while a young Jesuit and regaled us with stories of the street fighting in Munich "Venn, he vas a young boy in Chermany", the most colorful faculty members were the retired sergeants.

  Among them was Sergeant Daley, from whom we learned in the basement rifle range, that a certain unmentionable type of hair is actually a unit of measure.  Sergeant Daley told us many things that we would need to know as rookie Army officers (which almost none of us became).  One of those things was the unfortunate chronic shortage of blank ammunition to create realistic training exercises.  The other was an anecdote about the dangers of blank ammunition.  In lieu of a bullet a blank round had a small wad of material that is dangerous at very close range.  He illustrated this point with a story about someone firing a blank with his rifle pointing down in a crowded room.  At that range the wadding material could penetrate the top and bottom of a combat boot and the intervening biological material.

So what does that have to do with the above quote about gay marriage.  Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that passage in his dissent in Lawrence v Texas which ruled anti-sodomy laws were unconstitutional.  The passage has since been used to defend gay marriage.  You see Justice Scalia attended Xavier even longer ago than John and I did.  When he attended Xavier, Sergeant Daley was still on active duty and unavailable to warn young high school lads about shooting themselves in the foot.