Dare To Be A Feminist

by Paul Guequierre, Human Rights Campaign

We’re another day closer to tax day. If you haven’t filed your tax returns yet, it’s time to get on it. As you get the forms ready, we’ll shed a little more light on the unfair tax burden LGBT taxpayers face. All week we’ve said the lack of marriage equality is the reason for the tax disparity. It is clear that repealing DOMA and making marriage equality a reality in all 50 states is the solution. The anti-equality leadership in Congress needs to hear from us.

To personalize our tax struggles, every day leading up to tax day we will also release a fact of the day on unfair taxation. We encourage you to use Facebook and Twitter to spread the message. Wednesday we told you an average retired same-sex couple will be denied more than $8,000 a year in Social Security survivor benefits upon the death of the higher-earning spouse after retirement. Yesterday we told you same-sex partners and spouses of Armed Forces members are denied military benefits that straight couples receive.

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Huff Post Politics

No Special Rights PAC, a new anti-gay group, has laid down roots in Maine, where its two founders are hoping to combat a pro-equality push that has led to a same-sex marriage ballot initiative being put to a vote in November.

Paul Madore and Mike Heath, longtime opponents of gay rights and pro-gay initiatives who founded the group, made a public push this month at the University of Maine during Pride Week, where they distributed a "truth pledge" that, among other goals, seeks to rebrand gay marriage as "Sodomy-Based Marriage."

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by Joe Davidson, WASHINGTON POST 

The Obama administration has directed a health insurance company to cover the same-sex spouse of a federal employee. Gay rights advocates say they believe this is the first time such coverage has been allowed.

A March 9 letter to Blue Cross Blue Shield, from Shirley Patterson, assistant director of federal employee insurance operations for the Office of Personnel Management, said that “OPM hereby withdraws any outstanding directive regarding the enrollment of Ms. Golinski’s wife, Amy C. Cunninghis, in her family health benefits plan.”

OPM previously said the wife of Karen Golinski, a federal court employee in California, could not be covered. [MORE]