Archive for July, 2009
LGBT activists look beyond marriage in state & local law
The surprising thing about this AP article is not what it says – that many state-based LGBT organizations are working to end discrimination in a variety of areas rather than working for the right to marry – but that the article got published at all. The media tends to over-focus on the simplistic, small-c conservative story of marriage because that’s easier than describing reality in all it’s complexity and nuance.
Many of the state and local laws that result from such activism can benefit all unmarried people in a wide variety of mutually supportive relationships. That’s what we should all be working towards, together.
Good news for unmarried parents
Thanks to Kyla at the National Council for Research on Women for alerting me that this coming Sunday marks the 15th Annual National Parent’s Day. NCRW will celebrate with a blog fest on family diversity – look for a guest post by AtMP’s own graduate research intern!
Just in time for Parent’s Day, it is great to learn from Cathy at the National Center for Lesbian Rights that, in Washington DC and soon in New Mexico,
when a woman bears a child conceived by artificial insemination, and her spouse or unmarried partner consents in writing to the insemination, the consenting spouse or partner is a legal parent. That person’s name will appear as a parent on the child’s birth certificate.
Congrats and thanks to our friend Nancy Polikoff for helping draft this model legislation!
Seeking judges for media awards
Last year’s Unmarried and Single Americans Week Media Awards were really fun. If you’d like to be a judge on this year’s panel, please apply for a judgeship! AtMP seeks judges who are grammatical, witty (but not snarky), and recognize the importance of fairness and equality for all unmarried people. The application is short and simple:
a) write a one- to three-sentence commentary on the just-released Census Dept. fact sheet for USA Week 2009.
b) confirm that you’ll be available to read, and write one- to three-sentence reviews of, up to a dozen news articles between Sept. 27 – Oct 4.
c) Click here to submit your judgeship application by September 1st.
Happy senior singles
There’s good myth-busting going on at the New Old Age blog. Recent posts debunk the singlist notion that being unmarried in old age means being unhappy and alone.
From a research study mentioned in the blog:
Are Older Adults Happy? They’re about as happy as everyone else. And perhaps more importantly, the same factors that predict happiness among younger adults-good health, good friends and financial security-by and large predict happiness among older adults. However, there are a few age-related differences in life’s happiness sweepstakes. Most notably, once all other key demographic variables are held constant, being married is a predictor of happiness among younger adults but not among older adults (perhaps because a significant share of the latter group is made up of widows or widowers, many of whom presumably have “banked” some of the key marriage-related correlates of happiness, such as financial security and a strong family life). Among all older adults, happiness varies very little by age, gender or race.
I was put off by the “banked” line on first glance. But on closer reading I believe it means that young married people who describe themselves as happier than young unmarried people may be happier not because of marriage itself but because of factors that correlate with but are not caused marriage (“such as financial security and a strong family life”). Those factors can outlive marriage and can be obtained over time without marriage, so older previously married people still enjoy them as much as never married older people who had achieved similar life factors.
And from the blog itself:
loved-starved widows, if they ever really existed outside men’s imaginations, have gone the way of June Cleaver. Women like Ms. Austin see themselves as part of a new generation of widows who openly, and sometimes gleefully, admit they like being liberated from their roles as wives and homemakers. While they may grieve over the deaths of beloved spouses and while some will never recover from their losses, the vast majority of older widows, studies show, accept and even revel in their roles as single women.
AtMP submits congressional testimony on DP benefits
Last week, thanks to the quick work of a new intern, AtMP submitted written testimony about domestic partner benefits for federal employees to the House Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce etc. In sum, we told Congress that
The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009 offers an important opportunity to give unmarried Americans who work for the federal government better access to health coverage. However, by offering to include only same-sex partners, it falls short not only of the needs of federal employees but also of the standard set by competing employers.
The committee website also offers links to testimony by other organizations, labor unions and individuals.
This afternoon, we’re watching the webcast of the hearing. We had a brief moment of glee when Representative Chafetz of Utah expressed concern about discrimination against unmarried different-sex couples. Of course, the moment quickly passed when his comments made clear that he is more interested in “protecting” “traditional marriage” than recognizing family diversity. (Hear his comments roughly around 44 minutes and 1 hour 22 minutes into the webcast. Nonetheless, we’ll try reaching out to him to persuade him that discrimination is real and, unlike what Representative Baldwin said, not “easily cured” by getting married.
Introducing the Alt2MarriageIndia listserve
Dozens of people on AtMP’s email list live in India, but most of our work pertains to the USA. We’d like to help our Indian members connect to other Indians who are interested in alternatives to marriage.
During July and August, AtMP will host an experimental email discussion list just for people in India. We hope folks will take advantage of this opportunity to organize an on-going conversation. We could continue to host the list if there is strong interest; but we’d rather see folks create a new system that works better and more locally. Either way, we hope we are starting something that is helpful!
Technical details: People can join the list by checking the India Listerve box on our sign-up page. Everyone on the list will receive every email message that is approved for release to the list, and anyone on the list can respond to any message. All messages will be marked [Alt2MarriageIndia]. (Please keep an eye out for them, in case they land in your junk or spam file.) For the first two months, Rajiv Garg will moderate the list (he’ll approve or reject each message before everyone sees it). Every message will include an unsubscribe link at the bottom – clicking that link will give you the option of leaving only the India Listserve, or leaving AtMP altogether (but we’d hate to see you go!).
Blogger agrees: no special status for marriage
How nice to see this comment from Amanda Marcotte on Alternet:
We could start by untying all the benefits that lure people into marriage and expanding them to all people — health insurance, hospital visitation rights, tax breaks — so that married people don’t get special status over the unmarried.
AtMP has been working towards these very goals since 1998. Check out our policy statements and suggestions for how to take action on health insurance, hospital visitation rights, and tax breaks.
Bachelors’ independence, not equality
A New York Times op-ed by John Gilbert McCurdy celebrates the Fourth of July as the
dawn of a new era when personal differences — first marital status, but later sex and race — no longer mattered in determining one’s citizenship.
Well, unmarried citizenship is not in question; but equal treatment is still far off. Has the USA really matured past the biases of its founding fathers? Compare some of McCurdy’s examples to the present:
As the delegates created a new nation, they assailed sexual immorality, luxury and sloth — all of which they associated with the single life. …
Nor was it just inside Independence Hall that bachelors were scorned. For 80 years, Pennsylvania had collected a levy on single men who earned wages but did not own property. This tax had been devised as a means of easing the burden on men with large families, but it had become increasingly onerous for the colony’s bachelors. Since the 1740s, landless singles had been paying higher taxes than 90 percent of property owners.
In our current national income tax structure, the net bonus enjoyed by married couples is about $30 Billion per year.
Celebrate your Independence Day by writing a letter to the NY Times editors to remind them that there’s more work to be done. A few years ago, AtMP posted tips and sample letters on income taxes here. Send your letter to letters@nytimes.com, and post a copy here for us to read!
New Yorkers celebrate Unmarried Pride with AtMP
The party featured a bountiful table of sweets, raffle prizes and books about alternatives to a marriage-based legal system.
Last Sunday, AtMP board member Kevin Maillard and his partner Iris hosted a lovely party for AtMP in their Manhattan apartment. The gathering was an opportunity for them to introduce AtMP to their family and friends, and to meet other New Yorkers who are already members of the AtMP family. Many of the guests were academics like Kevin or lawyers like Iris.
Rose Cuison Villazor and Kevin Maillard are co-editors of a book on race, sex and marriage that is due out in 2010.
