(no subject)

[figment]

It really sucks, a lot, that the very last words on the MN application for a marriage license are to affirm that "one of us is a man and one of us is a woman". Way to sour that part of the process there, Minnesota.

Comments

[katana-girl.livejournal.com]

If this is an important issue to you I have to wonder why you are choosing to get legally married at all?

[whitefox77.livejournal.com]

Well, there is always the $1000 per year you'll save on your taxes....

[katana-girl.livejournal.com]

As the feds define maariage the same way as mn, the question boils down, in some regards, to does a person care more about money back or their principles.

[evaluna68.livejournal.com]

There's always the health coverage if one partner is employed and the other isn't. Last I checked, less than 10% of employers offer coverage for unmarried domestic partners of employees. And if one has a preexisting condition, that's a big, fat, hairy deal, and one that other legal contracts between partners can't fix for any amount of money.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i'm a big fan of being able to visit people in the hospital, fmla benefits, and joint parenting, myself.

http://www.buddybuddy.com/mar-list.html

[lexinatrix.livejournal.com]

I saved no such amount upon getting married. In fact, I got dosed for $4000 when I married the first time. Upon my second marriage I had enough tax breaks from home ownership to offset the "marriage penalty" tax.

[laserbitch.livejournal.com]

It all depends on how much money you do or don't make, what you end up getting back on taxes.

[lexinatrix.livejournal.com]

Right, and it also matters how much each spouse makes relative to the other. The tax laws have remained virtually untouched in this arena since the typical family model was one breadwinner and one stay-at-home parent. It still rewards marriages with vast differences in income (as long as the total is still beneath a certain threshold), but penalizes earners with nearly the same incomes or collective incomes over a certain amount.

My key point was that marriage doesn't automagically impart a tax break, and can in some cases increase one's tax burden... as I discovered the hard way.

[laserbitch.livejournal.com]

I'm not disputing that. In fact, the first year that ninevah and I were married, we ended up owing $800 total in taxes... Each year going down some until we were finally equal to in and out (the state return paid for the check to federal). Now that Nin's in school and I'm the only breadwinner (even before the Little Tax Break was born), we got decent returns. Which I'd hope for, since I only make $26k/year.

[lthomas987.livejournal.com]

Presumably for all the reasons I would like to get married but can't. For the low cost of a marriage license you can short cut like $2k in legal fees to get documents that are almost as good.

[birdfigment.livejournal.com]

Yes. This, and I am enjoying the excuse to throw a big party.

I do not anticipate saving any money in taxes. Actually, I expect I will probably pay more. Oh well.

[spacebug.livejournal.com]

Lots of people have replied, but, I put my opinion most strongly with that of Dan Savage- that if you're not getting married solely to stand in solidarity with members of the GLBT community who are denied the right, it does less for you and them than doing something like making a donation to an organization like the HRC.

I think if I end up getting married, I might have a collection box for this kind of thing. I wonder how S4's parents would like that...

[birdfigment.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's true for us too. Although we did not think of the collection box idea... hmm. Now we are considering it.