Why You Should Give A Damn!

Newsletter Archive

Newsletter #27, October, 2008

An important book to consider during the 2008 election season and beyond-Review by Jessica Lux on Amazon.com

by Davina Kotulski, Ph.D.

In Why You Should Give a Damn About Gay Marriage, clinical psychologist and activist Davinia Kotulski explains in plain language why everyone, gay and straight, needs to give a damn about the issue of gay marriage (a general term the author uses to encompass marriage equality for same-sex and transsexual partners). Marriage affords heterosexual folks some 1,138 federal rights and protections and, on average, 300 additional rights per state. Sure, a committed gay couple could hire a lawyer to draft wills, powers of attorney, medical directives, and a whole briefcase full of papers, but for those to work, they would have to be toted on every vacation and to every consumer interaction. Many rights remain firmly out of the grasp for anyone who doesn’t fit the American image of a marriage for one man and one woman.

This slim paperback volume lists the rights which are out of the reach of gays and transsexual citizens of America and contains rebuttals to many of the common arguments against gay marriage. Sure, marriage is in the Bible as being between a man and a woman, but that traditional view of marriage one in which women were the property of their husbands, and we’ve certainly moved past that as a society!

Kotulski peppers her book with anecdotes about real-world couples who were denied their basic civil rights and pursuit of happiness due to the inequality in the American institution of marriage. Gay partners can be forced to testify against their spouses in court, while heterosexuals are afforded spousal privilege. Immigration protections and rights do not apply to gay partners. Social Security, life insurance, pension, employer health insurance, and even 9/11 survivor benefits are denied to gay partners in committed, decades-long relationships. In a strange twist of fate, federal ethics codes of conduct apply to straight spouses, but not to gay partners, so the unethical senator could have a gay partner accepts all the bribes he or she wanted! Of course, right now, gays do escape the "marriage penalty" in the tax code, but should not we make them shoulder their fair share of the tax burden?

I highly recommend this book to all readers regardless of personal or political orientation. This is an important title to reconsider during the 2008 election season, at a time when many candidates seem unwilling to touch the "marriage issue" in much detail. Kotulski reminds us just why we should all give a damn about gay marriage.