The Cost of Bigotry

The legislature has spoken. Utah’s voters have spoken. In 2004 they made it clear that my family was not to be considered “valid.” My partner and I shouldn’t be afforded the same rights as married couples. We shouldn’t even be afforded rights that might be a little bit too similar to those given married couples. I was disappointed in 2004 when Constitutional Amendment 3 was voted into law. But then, sometime between 2004 and now, my disappointment dissipated and I got really pissed off.
  

Maybe it was when I had to file my income tax and mark single because no other box described my family. Even though there are actual financial benefits to filing separately for my family’s structure, it still irks me.
Maybe it was because I got tired of reading notes sent home from school addressed “dear mom and dad.”
Maybe it was because I got sick of hearing strangers ask my son where he got his red hair.
Maybe it was because solicitors kept calling my house and asking for my husband.
Or maybe it was when the Mormon missionaries cornered me outside a local community center and asked me if I would like to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. I asked them what I’d have to do to convert to their church, explaining that I was a lesbian and my partner and I had two children together. Their response was that I would have to leave her and our sinful lifestyle behind me, take the children away from her terrible influence, and start anew. For a church that touts the importance of family, this seemed just a little too hypocritical for me.
Maybe it was when I was denied domestic partnership benefits at my former place of employment despite two years of assurances that they were looking into it. There’s another year without a dentist for Kim.
Maybe it was when I was speaking with a state legislator, explaining why “in loco parentis” was so important to my family, sharing the many ways that my (innocent) son is unfairly treated under the law because of who his parents are. She couldn’t hear any of it. She couldn’t even see us as a family. The only chord we struck was financial. She didn’t think it was fair that when I lost my job I had to apply for CHIP to cover the boys on insurance, even though there was a willing and able other party (she couldn’t even say “second parent”) who wanted to pay those insurance premiums but wasn’t allowed because – after all – we’re not a real family.
I am not sure the exact moment it happened. The moment isn’t important, the resolution is. I decided my family can be made invisible, treated like second-class citizens and ignored on forms, on television and while walking down the street. We can be discounted. But it’ll cost the citizens of Utah. Get out your pocketbooks, taxpayers. It’s time to fund your bigotry.
See, because if we aren’t a family, then my boys are being raised by a single mom. A single mom who – unemployed right now — struggles financially to make ends meet. Who cares how much the “other mother” makes? It’s irrelevant. The “other mother” isn’t part of the family, is she? And for a single mother struggling to raise two children on her own, there are food stamps. There’s WIC. There’s Medicaid. CHIP. HEAT. There are a lot of services designed to help those of us who struggle. Make sure you put the cars and the house in the “other mother’s” name, keep the credit cards and other debts in yours.    
Then, at the end of the month, calculate how much money in public assistance you received, and make sure to write the checks to the Utah Pride Center. Equality Utah. The Utah Aids Foundation. See, I’ve uncovered a way essentially to make tax dollars go to the organizations of my choice and it’s by fitting the mold the legislature created for me. All it would take to save these hardworking Americans their tax dollars is to recognize my family. Until then, it’ll cost the citizens of Utah. Oh, it’ll cost them plenty.
I am ready to finally take my share of the pie that has been systematically denied to us historically and continues to be yanked from our grasp. I’m not going to be able to draw on my partner’s social security. I don’t get the more than 1000 benefits of marriage. My boys suffer daily because of this two parent – man/woman – Christian system we live under.
If the legislature won’t listen to our pain when we talk about our families not receiving the protections they need, if the legislature won’t allow my partner to adopt the child she loves and raises, if the legislature just wants to talk dollars, then let’s give them what they want. Let’s talk about all the dollars we’re requiring from the state because they won’t let us get it from each other. Sure, I’d be willing to trade it all in for ENDA, marriage, co-parent adoption and health insurance. But until then, I’m eating pie.
Oh, and the legislature gets another chance this session to take the cohabitation clause out of the Utah adoption law. Until this happens, I’d sure like to see as many of you in the welfare line as are eligible.