OlderMelissa Etheridge: No Same-Sex Marriage? No Taxes!
Melissa Etheridge is standing up to the state of California, which passed Proposition 8 (banning same-sex marriage) on Election Day.
The 44-year-old singer took to The Daily Beast to blog about her refusal to pay taxes if same-sex marriage is banned. Here’s an excerpt:
“Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen…Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away… Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. ”
Read the full blog entry at TheDailyBeast.com.
Pictured above: Melissa with her wife/roommate/girlfriend/special lady friend Tammy Lynn Michaels back in 2001. They had a wedding ceremony in Sept. 2003 in Malibu, Calif. The couple planned on legally getting marrying later this year.
FYI: During Madonna’s concert last night, she said, “Sorry to hear we didn’t win on Prop 8, but don’t give up the fight. If we can have an African American in the White House then when we can have gay marriages.”
Share This Post:
122 Comments
Ant, your comments are bordering on redundant and insane at times..you make a valid point and i get the part that you are for same-sex marriage and i can feel your frustration at the passing of Prop 8, but to compare the views of Christians to an alcoholic trying to ban alcohol is mildly mental? anyhoo, where do you think we as people come from? monkeys, science or better yet, a gay union?/? to live and breathe is a testament of a God having created us, God who’s son Jesus died for our sins! Believe what you will, and in America, we do have religious freedoms, but most Americans still have strong moral beliefs which stem from Biblical times and the people have chosen to uphold that law of keeping tradition unions between man and woman, instead of same sex couples. To allow same-sex unions would open doors for other taboo unions. The bottom line to all of this is sex. sex between a man and woman produces children and our body parts are a testament of how we were created to fit each other. get my meaning? you have every right to love whomever you want and do whatever you want, but don’t try to make the rest of us accept same-sex lifestyles by making it legal.
Oh my freakin God!!! These celebrities have **** for brains. Everything seems to lead back to Obama being elected like the whole world should turn upside down. This is gonna be terrible.
Biden did say he and Obama are against gay marriages. Throw her ass in jail.
To everyone being so judgemental about gays getting married - YOU DISGUST ME! Gays are people too and they should be able to marry just like everyone else. I can’t believe the world is still so completely narrowminded.
for those who have said GOD to be perfect…so does that mean he made a boo-boo when creating the gays? hmmm…. if he’s oh so perfect, then all his creations should be seen EQUAL, regardless of how one differs from another.
gays should be allowed to marry and not be discriminated against!
you guys are seriously no different then racist!
i hope you guys grow up to have gay kids. we’ll see how you handle it then!!!
laura,
oh yeah, God in his infinite wisdom is perfect. being gay has nothing with Him being imperfect just as having a baby born with down-syndrome or heart defects etc…there are circumstances in which people are born to that we have no control over either due to factors such as a mothers diet, habits, age or genetics, too much testosterone or too much estrogen etc…sometimes people are put on this earth to test our capacity to tolerate and love and we do love people straight or gay because Lord knows that many heterosexuals are abuser’s, murderer’s, molester’s, serial killer’s etc…but as tolerant as we can be about people’s lifestyles and sexual preferences the law needs to draw the line at traditional marriage being the only kind of marriage recognized in our country. There is always MA for those who are adamant about having a same-sex union. Melissa should move there and quit complaining because the people have spoken and if this goes before vote again, the numbers are going to be even bigger for traditional marriage. God Bless!
I am really fed up with people using religion as an excuse to maim, murder, and steal.
Religion HAS NO BUSINESS interfering with the governing of state, ABSOULTELY NONE, and all you bigoted ******** know it. The passing of prop 8 is a blatant attempt to stripe taxpaying, law abiding citizens of their basic civil rights. Marriage is a religious institution and should have no legal standing in the courts. The only reason marriage has legal standing is because divorce is a legal institution that separates property and assets according to law. Other than that, marriages should only by acknowledged by YOUR particular religion and no one else, including state and federal government. The fact that it was so easy for voters to shift blame onto “God” instead of taking responsibility for their own attempts to subjugate a minority of the population is laughable and just proves that religion is misused in this country on an epic scale.
Melissa has every right to be upset by this disgusting display of hate and is dead on when she says she should not be expected to pay taxes. Why should she, as a second class citizen who is actively discriminated against, be expected to finance California and its government if that government prohibits her equal protection under the law? Why should she pay for your stop signs and your public transportation and your state infrastructure when you believe that she, as a gay citizen, is beneath you and does not deserve the same rights as you, a heterosexual Christian who also happens to be a bigot?
I am a straight female who voted NO against Prop 8 because IT IS WRONG to strip a human of their basic civil rights. Just as I would vote NO on any prop that denied a Christian to marry or live their life as they please. Get your head out of your a**es, stop being hypocrites and think about how you would feel and what you would do if this was happening to you.
And for the record, there is a special place in hell for people who abuse religion and use it as an excuse to hate. You can bet on it.
that 51% represented the sanity of human being…what’s right is RIGHT…what’s WRONG is wrong…there is no way it means gay people are 2nd class citizen but just to say…if you want NORMAL WAY TO LIVE…LIVE IT IN NORMAL MANNER!!!gay is about sex preference…not way of life…..get on with it….i gave all the respect to a many kind of people but that doesn’t mean i agree on how they do things…..so do not push that button…don’t ask for this and that just because….
She may not like it but California citizens made their decision and that’s that. Gay marriage should be decided within the states and in this case, it was. The ban should stand. And Obama is against gay marriage I heard him say it in the Saddleback Church interviews.
She sounds like a rich whiny ******* 8 year old. Waaahh, I didn’t get my way so I’m taking my ball and going home. Only in this case the ball is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nice attitude in the middle of an economic crisis. I hope they throw her in prison.
Hate to break this to you summer, but your god has NOTHING to do with CIVIL marriage. You don’t have to believe in Jesus, Allah, Vishnu or any other deity to get married in this country. You don’t have to believe in god at ALL to get married. The government doesn’t care if you get married in a church or a courtroom. Civil marriage is not concerned with any one subjective religious view of it. The government is only concerned with liberty and equality.
Besides, many Christians, Jews, Wiccans, Unitarians and others don’t have ANY problem with gay marriage. Shouldn’t THEIR religious beliefs be protected under the law too, or just yours?
And you have yet to give us an example of any marriage law anywhere that requires a couple to be capable of having babies. I know it’s more convenient to ignore logic and reason, but could you at least try to take off your Bible-colored glasses?
Ugh these comments are seriously disgusting me. I cannot believe how ignorant people can be and it really makes me dislike some of my fellow Americans. The fact that Prop 8 was passed is despicable.
And to use God or religion in this argument is completely idiotic. There is such a thing as separation of church and state! You can have your beliefs but they shouldn’t come into the laws.
If gays marry, how is that going to do anything to YOU? Sure it might make them go to hell (if that is what you believe, which I don’t) but how does that affect you in ANY way?
I am SURE Melissa will still pay her taxes. She is just trying to make a point but she isn’t stupid. She wouldn’t risk going to jail, etc. not when she has a family.
Leah, did you notice the quote from Obama’s letter where he states his opposition to Prop 8?
Are you really unable to understand how a person could be against something PERSONALLY but be for it LEGALLY? Obama DID say he personally believes marriage is between a man and a woman; and he also said that he doesn’t approve of taking anyone else’s marriage rights away from them.
In other words, you don’t HAVE to approve of something for yourself to understand that others should have the right to live as they choose.
Summer, sorry if you were offended by my analogy, but I wasn’t comparing Christians to alcoholics, I was pointing out how to enforce your personal beliefs on everyone else is ridiculous. To use another example, it’s like if vegetarians were to vote down your right to eat mean if you want to, or vice versa. Just because you may personally disagree with one side or the other doesn’t mean your preference should be forced on everyone else.
Eight years ago, when Californians voted on Prop 22, only 38% of the population supported gay marriage. The Prop 8 was MUCH closer… 48% of Californians supported gay marriage. In a few years, the majority of Californians will approve of gay marriage, it’s only a matter of time and some of you will be just as ashamed of your ignorance and bigotry now as segregationists of the sixties were then.
In the meantime, we still have two states in which gay marriage is secure, and several more states are poised to legalize it in the next year or two, making California’s debacle look even more ridiculous. It’s odd that gay marriage is taking hold on the east coast before the west coast.
btw summer, gay marriage has been legal here in MA for five years now. Can you give us an example of any other “doors” that have opened for taboo relationships within this time?
Newsflash: The government doesn’t care about sex, whether or not you have it and whether or not it results in kids. Maybe your RELIGIOUS definition of it does, but we have separation of church and state here. If you really want to live in a country where marriage laws have changed little since Biblical times, maybe you should move to the Middle East somewhere.
I live in California, and a big reason Prop 8 passed was the large numbers of minority (black and hispanic, read…more religious than typical white californian) voters that participated this year….due in part to some of Hollyweird’s Get out the Vote campaigning. Hmmm. And uhhh, Melissa and Madumpa…Obama is against gay marriage.
I live in California, and a big reason Prop 8 passed was the large numbers of minority (black and hispanic, read…more religious than typical white californian) voters that participated this year….due in part to some of Hollyweird’s Get out the Vote campaigning. Hmmm. And uhhh, Melissa and Madumpa…Obama is against gay marriage.
Whatever, the important thing is that while Obama personally disagrees with gay marriage, he does not think gay couples should have their marriage rights taken away. This is very important distinction.
It seems fairly easy to simply say “If one doesn’t pay their taxes then send them to jail.” However, what seems to be forgotten is that if every gay person living in a state where gay marriage is banned didnt pay their taxes you couldnt put them in jail because there is NO ROOM IN OUR JAIL/PRISONS NOW. As a heterosexual female I have no problem with who anyone wants to marry because who you marry is none of my business. So now that the marriage ban was passed those who voted yes to the proposition 8 now need to realize that in voting YES you now have opened the door for a very interesting and in the near future court battle….Melissa’s stand makes sense…not a full citizen….then i wont pay taxes……probable supreme court ruling…Allow gay marriage or homosexuals get a tax break
Makes sense. The outcome of prop 8 has now opened a door that I dont think 51% are going to like. Probable supreme court ruling….allow gay marriage or not allow gay marriage and be forced to give homosexual’s huge tax breaks due to them not being full citizens.
Go on fighting, Melissa. Sure your rights and your wife’s will be soon general and equal. Teocons and fanatics won’t win.
Obama got elected by 96% of the black vote and 70% of the blacks vote for prop 8 against gay marriage. Figure that!!! Melissa even blacks don’t want gay marriage!!
Okay. For the Record, I really don’t care. I have gay friends and they have the same rights as me. The only difference is it is not called Marriage. They have the same tax benefits, medical benefits, right down to maternal leave. I never understood this but to each their own. Had it failed, I would have been fine too.
But here is reality check time. Both Presidential candidates and VP candidates opposed federally legislated gay marriage. That is a FACT!
Also a fact that is wasn’t some nutjob conservatives. In fact, it’s probably because of the new voters that Obama encouraged to vote. Over 66% of African-Americans opposed Gay marriage. That is a FACT. This is not some conservative right wing wacko situation.
So Madonna can bite me. For Melissa, who is an awesome person, I am truly sorry.
But it happened in other states as well. I am sure things will change but, you can’t continue to deny what the people want. The 9th court circuit of appeals already is the most unconstitutional legal authority in history. You cannot continue to legislate from the bench.
The reason they don’t take it to the Fed level is because it would fail and everyone knows it.
There is no discrimination. If you get the same rights, then what is a simple terminology? For the most part San Francisco liberal are atheist or agnostic. Funny how the Church, which is the reason for most marriages is suddenly important. Just not enough to display religious feelings.
I don’t see the ACLU protecting Joe the Plumber for Democratic illegal witch hunts or standing up to the proposed Fairness Doctrine which will mussel free speech.
Everything is cool with protesters as long as it fits their lifestyle and agenda.
Get over it. Even in an Obama White House, they don’t want it.
Why not get married in churches as gays and leave it at that. They have the same benefits as non-gays and can say they are married. Having a state piece of paper is no big deal.
Anyway, Obama’s new voters voted it down. deal with it. Can’t have it all ways…. sorry to say.
The Truth
alot of you are ignorant ********.
Pages: « 1 2 3 [4] 5 » Show All
Comment and Share!
E-mail to a Friend or share on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more!