A Washington, D.C., gay couple who married in Massachusetts has asked if they might file their city taxes as a married couple. The city attorney tentatively has said yes, in a story that first broke April 20 in the Washington Post. A conservative U.S. Senator, who controls the city's budget, wasted no time in threatening the city if it does.
Edward G. Horvath, 54, and Richard G. Neidich, 64, are both federal employees who have been together for 25 years. They married in Somerville, Mass., June 25.
This spring they sought advice from the city tax office as to whether they could file a joint return as a marriage couple. They believe that they are married and that filing as individuals would be committing perjury, lying, on their signed tax form. The matter was passed on to the city's attorney.
On April 14, D.C. Attorney General Robert J. Spagnoletti, himself gay, advised that 'validly married same-sex couples may file a joint D.C. Form 40' tax return, while the city retains the right to determine the validity of that filing. The validity of the marriage remains a legal question mark because Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has asserted that a seldom-enforced 1913 law precludes out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts if the laws of their home state do not allow such a marriage. A legal challenge to the 1913 law is before the courts.
Last year Spagnoletti wrote an advisory opinion as to whether the District of Columbia must recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. However, Mayor Anthony Williams has refused to make that document public. The mayor has said, 'We're at a very, very difficult situation because we're not just any city.'
All of D.C.'s laws and budget items technically are part of the federal government. They are reviewed by Congress, which often has shown little hesitation in meddling in what are otherwise local affairs. That is particularly true of 'hot button' social issues where social conservatives have tried to impose on D.C. what they could not impose on the entire country.
So it was no surprise when Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., warned of a sharp backlash from Congress if D.C. recognized the gay couple's marriage. The Senator recently held the first of what are likely to be several hearings designed to defend traditional marriage. As chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that handles DC's budget, he is in a position to back up that threat.
'The scandal of D.C.—a place with less democracy than Kirkuk—continues,' wrote gay pundit Andrew Sullivan on his blog. 'The social right has always argued that the people and their elected representatives should be able to decide these questions. To have our lives and the internal workings of our own families dictated by a Kansan who would never win more than a handful of votes in this city is just maddening.'
Threats such as Brownback's are one reason why not all GLBT community members are jumping on the marriage bandwagon. This is 'the political equivalent of sailing down the Potomac River on a flaming barge,' said Rick Rosendall, vice president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance.