Gay couples wage campaign not to lie on tax returns

By John Tomasic | 04.05.11 | 4:25 pm | More from The Colorado Independent

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Legally married gay couples this month will be filing joint tax returns to the IRS, pressing the federal government to again acknowledge that, by failing to recognize gay marriage, it routinely asks U.S. citizens to lie on their tax forms. “More people are refusing to lie on those forms even though the government is telling them to,” said Nadine Smith, director of gay rights group Equality Florida. Smith is gay and married and she says that she and her partner will not lie on their tax form this year. “It would be both dishonest and deeply humiliating to now disavow each other or our marriage and declare ourselves single,” she said.

Smith’s group is waging a national campaign called “Refuse to Lie.”

“The Federal Government must stop requiring… gay couples to deny the existence of our families and hide our marriages. It is dehumanizing and it is wrong…. The government has chosen to discriminate and we choose to expose [its] bigotry,” explains the campaign website.

The campaign brings to mind debate last year around the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” U.S. military policy that prevented gay soldiers from serving openly. A compelling argument made by opponents of the ban was that the policy committed the government to abetting deceit. The unworkability of such a position was thrown into relief by arguments that trust among soldiers and their commanders serving together was an essential foundation for unit cohesion and effectiveness.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was officially ended as policy in December, the details of its repeal yet to be worked out by military leaders.

The business section blog at the New York Times reports on the Florida campaign.
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