Do you have to get divorced every time you move?

Are you married?

If so, when's the last time you had to get divorced and remarried just because you moved within the United States?

If you're in an opposite-sex couple and you're married, chances are you got married, and no matter where in the US you've moved, you've stayed married.  It's probably never occurred to you to get divorced and remarried just because you were moving to another city or county in your state, or to another state.

Sounds pretty silly, actually, right?

At tax time, my second-class citizenship rears up and smacks me in the face

Tax time is interesting in our household.

My wife and I are not married as far as the federal government is concerned.  Because we're a same-sex couple. 

We're married as far as our religion is concerned.

We're everything-but-married as far as the state we live in is concerned -- our state has a civil union law, court-mandated to be everything but marriage in name. 

This has some fascinating tax implications.

And they rear up and smack us in the face at tax-time.

Recommended article: "Commitment, the Best a Lesbian Couple Could Do"

A friend of mine passed this article on to me:

City Critic - Commitment, the Best a Lesbian Couple Could Do - NYTimes.com

It hit home, kind of hard.  

Six months after Beloved Wife and I started dating, we got hit with heavy-duty medical shit.  We waited four years to get married (religiously, not civilly).  Then last fall, when one of us was getting ready for major surgery, we did the civil union thing in NJ.  We feel like the mayor and everyone involved at City Hall is invested in our marriage now.  But we knew that NJ hospitals don't always respect civil unions "because they're not marriages," even though the NJ Supreme Court says they're supposed to. 

This story brought tears to my eyes...

Nearly-equal rights. Still second-class citizenship.

This is the story (so far) of our civil union in New Jersey, and why I am not, in fact, excited about it.

My wife and I recently moved to New Jersey for her work. After we arrived, I started researching NJ's domestic partnership and civil union laws.

More on marriage equality

I found myself writing recently, a little unexpectedly, about some of my experiences with marriage inequality, and why marriage equality matters when it comes to real-life, practical details.

Well, I'm finding myself even deeper, more face-to-face, with marriage inequality right now, and it's very, very frustrating.

I'm a reluctant marriage equality advocate, let me admit that.

Not the National Coming Out Day conversation I expected

If you're on Facebook, you may have noticed a number of folks over the last few weeks with standardized status updates that read:

[Name] is (a lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender). There are X days until National Coming Out Day and I pledge to have heartfelt conversations for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. Donate your status and join me by clicking here: http://apps.facebook.com/equalityconversation/.

I didn't donate my status -- for one, I rarely do apps, since I like my privacy -- but I did post one or two status updates to this effect.

I'm always surprised when people who know me at all well are surprised to find out I'm a lesbian. It's less startling, but still frustrating, when people are surprised I'm bi, because there's still an assumption of monosexuality in this culture: either you're homosexual or you're heterosexual. Folks who are startled to learn I'm bi either know I've had successful romantic relationships with men and assume those are invalid now (because I must be monosexual), or assume that because I have been involved only with women since they've known me and am not that interested in men, I must be monosexual.

But those are still the conversations I more or less expect to have. The kind where I refer to my partner or spouse in conversation at an event, the other person asks what my husband does, and I say, "My wife is a mathematician," and they blink. The kind where someone I've known for a long time says in shock, "You had a husband!?," and I say, "Yes, my first partner was male, and yes, I was out before we got together. He took me to my first Pride event."

But these conversations have progressed and changed over time. For example, more and more over the last few years, the conversations I've been having around the fact that I'm a lesbian center around civil rights, and especially marriage equality.

And while there's one little thread on my Facebook Wall about National Coming Out Day and how people identify and what labels mean (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer), there's another, completely different, conversation I've ended up having about the reality of my life as a lesbian in today's society.

And it really does feel like a coming-out conversation: Here is my reality. Here is the truth of my experience.

And as with many other such conversations over the years, I'm finding someone I'm talking with disbelieves the uncomfortable truth.

This person isn't a bigot. They seem to be a well-meaning straight person, but someone who just doesn't want to believe the discrimination I live with every day is as bad as I say -- that their legally-sanctioned heterosexual privilege is, in fact, just that.

(All names changed but mine; all quotes paraphrased except where indicated.)

The conversation has gone something like this:

• Friend A posts to their Facebook status that they're grateful to the marriage equality movement for helping them understand how many rights and privileges go with legal marriage [which this person has].

Conversation ensues in the comment thread, and then it gets interesting:

• Person B: I thought it was just the death tax that can't be addressed in a contract; what other rights can't they have?; of course anyone should marry whomever they want!; isn't Toys R Us great, they give domestic partners full health insurance.

• Person C: Oh, no, there's the whole hospital visitation thing; do you want to wrangle with a resistant family member in order to say goodbye to a dying partner?

• Person B: Wrong! If you have a living will and a signed and notorized agreement, the family can't keep you away!

• Person C: Uh-huh. So, my husband's in the hospital, and I have to dig out my legal paperwork before I go to the hospital?; in my case, take the bus home from work, find the paperwork, and drive back into town, when on top of it I'm probably not safe to drive?; assuming we've gone to the expense and trouble of getting such paperwork?; oh, and by the way, because we're an opposite-gender couple, they're not going to ask us for a copy of our marriage license, and we're in less need of powers of attorney and living wills, because we're legally married.

• Person B: Gosh, it's really awful when family members are jerks, and I'm really sorry for anyone who has to deal with that; but you do kind of know what you're getting into; spending $100 on a contract is nothing at all for the peace of mind it gives you, and of course if I had to do that, I'd know exactly where my paperwork is; so what else are the issues?, I know there aren't a lot of people who have to worry about taxes on huge estates.

• Me (direct quote):