Interesting…..just when I’m about to give up on the collective balls of our “movement”, I found this posted online:
To All Californians in the Fight Against Proposition 8:
Send the letter below to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Put the letter in a regular stamped envelope, address it to him, do not put your return address on it, and mail it off. (A generic phrase, such as “Angry Gay/Lesbian Citizen” in the upper left corner of the envelope would also suffice.) Send identical copies to Karen Bass (Speaker of the California Assembly), Darrell Steinberg (President pro Tem of the California Senate), and Ronald George (Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court.)
This tactic will put the state on notice that tens of thousands of infuriated, disenfranchised gay and lesbian citizens will not pay tribute to a state that denies them equal rights. It will wreak havoc with state budget planners, who are already dealing with a financial crisis. It will devastate their ability to accurately predict state income, and enact a budget.
We do have influence over a state which continues to abuse us. We can withhold our monetary support, and push the state toward bankruptcy. Even a hundred thousand lesbians and gays can financially drive the state right into the ground.
If you want to reduce or eliminate paying state income taxes, it is easy to do. Simply instruct your employer’s payroll department to increase the allowances for your pay checks to the highest allowable amount, which effectively reduces the amount of state tax being deducted each month. This is accomplished by filling out a new W-4 form for state withholdings, and writing in a higher number where it says “Withholding Allowances.” Reduce the state taxes to zero, if you want. (Every additional allowance reduces what is deducted for state taxes by about $8.00 monthly. So, adding 10 more allowances on your W-4 reduces what is being deducted for state taxes by about $80.00 monthly.) No doubt, you will find other uses for that money! As far as the 2009 state income tax returns go: just don’t file them.
Don’t fear penalties for nonpayment. The state will never be able to pursue a hundred thousand gays and lesbians who anonymously are refusing to pay income taxes. And even if the state tries to penalize you? Aren’t your rights worth fighting for?
The addresses are:
PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW IN THE LESBIAN/GAY COMMUNITY.
(The letter text is below. Do NOT email your letter to the four state leaders if you want to remain anonymous. Anonymity is part of the strategy.)
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Dear Arnold Schwarzenegger:
As a Californian, I am disgusted beyond description with Proposition 8. This despicable, immoral, and unconstitutional attempt by organized religion and personal bigotry to stop the forward progression of equal rights is without parallel in our state’s history.
Your lack of leadership in this constitutional, state-wide crisis is lamentable and cowardly. Twice, you vetoed historic same-sex marriage legislation. You appointed a Republican to the State Supreme Court who has twice coldly voted to deny gays and lesbians their constitutional rights. You promised to vigorously oppose Proposition 8, but during the 2008 campaign you were missing-in-action on this most important civil rights issue. You were content to sit on the sidelines while your gay and lesbian citizens were being abused, attacked, and marginalized. Well, now you will deal with the fallout from it.
The passage of this outrageous piece of garbage effectively tells me that I have no citizenship in California, no stake in our government, and indeed, tells me I am invisible to the state and to the people. Very well. So be it. My first action as an invisible, non-citizen is to stop paying all state income taxes. I will, from this point on, not pay any state taxes. I will also refuse to file any state income tax returns.
This action on my part will remain in effect until the California Constitution is restored to its former proud splendor, and any vestige of discrimination is removed from it, for all time. In a word: once the constitutional birthright of marriage is once again enjoyed by all citizens, including same-sex couples, I will start to pay income taxes again.
Oh, by the way: the taxes I am not paying will not make their way back into state coffers retroactively. The dollars being withheld during this constitutional crisis are lost to the Treasury forever, and will not be paid back once the marriage rights have been restored to the gay and lesbian community. So, the longer this Prop. 8 travesty goes on, the more dollars the state will lose.
Six cowardly Republicans on the state Supreme Court have decided to side with religious bigotry and personal prejudice in the so-called “culture war” against gay and lesbian Californians. They have ignored their oath to uphold the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution of California. Understandably, I have no desire to fund a government that has decided that persecution and abuse of gays and lesbians is permissible.
If your reaction is “tsk, tsk…withholding taxes is illegal”, well, save your breath. If you ever bothered to pick up a history book, you would know that the Boston Tea Party was considered illegal, too. In fact, so was the entire Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence clearly states that when a government destroys individual rights, “it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.” I have no interest in abolishing this state’s government, but by withholding tax funds I am quite capable of altering the state’s discriminatory attitudes and laws against me. I would be stupid to financially support a state which has singled me out for abuse, harassment, and discrimination.
I am not signing this document with my name. Proposition 8 has made me invisible as a citizen. So be it. You and the Department of Finance will never know whether I am one of the thousands of deadbeats who, every year, regularly do not pay their state taxes….OR…. if I am one of the tens of thousands of outraged lesbian and gay citizens who refuse to pay tribute to a state which allows bigoted voters to deny them the full measure of rights guaranteed to The People under the Constitutions of the United States and the State of California.
If you thought you had budget problems before, well, you have not seen anything yet.
Deal with it.
Sincerely,
An Invisible, Non-Citizen of California
cc: Karen Bass (Assembly Speaker) Darrell Steinberg (Senate President pro Tem) Ronald George (Chief Justice – California Supreme Court)
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How’s your state budget doing, Arnold?
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Ginelle had this to say on May 19th, 2009 about an Anti-Gay Amendment resurfacing in Pennsylvania.
“What Senator John Eichelberger is displaying is an outright intollerent and hateful attitude towards Gay and Lesbian people who have helped him win his senatorial seat simply by voting for him. And too, he seems to have forgotten that his wages from the taxpayers also includes Gay and Lesbian taxpayers. Is he willing to take a cut in pay should Gay and Lesbian people decide on a tax revolt – after all, why should we pay taxes for equal rights and protections if we are not receiving those very same equal rights and protections?“
GOOD QUESTION!
(excerpts)
America, we are not just fighting for individual rights; we are fighting for our FAMILY. YES – OUR FAMILY.
FAMILY is reason enough to bear arms and fight to defend one’s loved ones. FAMILY is worth fighting and dying for; FAMILY is the MOST IMPORTANT thing in our lives – ISN’T IT?!
So why do our effete, timid, cautious, apologetic Gay Organizations “fight” for FAMILY rights as if these rights are merely a reserved parking space? Why are we as a community FAILING MISERABLY to stand up for ourselves and our families?
CONSIDER:
I would LOVE to hear how Barack Obama, or Joe Biden, or Newt (oops, never mind about Newt), or even Rudy Giuliani would feel if THEY were kept from their wives’s bedside, and if their children were kept from their mother’s bedside – before she died.
Janice Langbehn already knows, as well as her children.
I would LOVE to hear how these men would respond if their children were taken away from them the day AFTER their wives had died.
“Steamboater” from Huffington Post already knows.
I would LOVE to hear how Michelle Obama and Jill Biden would feel if the home they built and lived in for 30 years with their husband was taken away from them after their husband’s death, and they were also charged for back rent (while struggling to avoid homelessness).
Sam knows.
GET WHERE I’M GOING, AMERICA?
I am CERTAIN that these men, along with other men and women, would REFUSE TO WAIT until 2010, 2012, or 2020 for their DUE CIVIL RIGHTS.
IT”S TIME TO CONNECT THE DOTS, AMERICA –
The mild to severely “mentally ill” are especially at risk for acting out, and from what I hear…..(lol)…….if the right combination of medication isn’t in place, “crazy, crazy shit can happen”. Just imagine MY response to someone trying to leave a religious leaflet on my doorstep, 5 days after PROP 8 passed. “Crazy” is right.
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And “Helloooo” Law Enforcement!
Do you know of Detective Hester?
She spends 25 years of her life on the force, DIES IN THE LINE OF DUTY, and her spouse is DENIED survivor’s pension benefit.
Would a male cop want HIS WIFE to experience this?
Rent FREEHELD
HOW MANY MORE DECADES DO WE NEED TO WAIT?
WE HAVE WAITED LONG ENOUGH.
They were also my connection to what I used to call “GOD” as a Catholic school-boy who attended Mass 3-5 times a week for 8 years.
You see, I lived in what many other adults know as a prison or “concentration camp of youth” - Child Abuse & Neglect.
A brief example:
Normal mothers do not scream and awaken all 3 young children before midnight, strip them, and force them into the shower one at a time with the freezing cold water on, beating and screaming the entire time. All I remember in the bathroom was her screaming at us, we were crying from the water and welts, and my dad stood nearby saying “oh honey don’t”. It was terrifying, it was humiliating, and it was confusing to watch my own father do absolutely nothing to protect us. I was between 4-6 years old then, and this is one night I still remember vividly. I guess us children had used all of the hot water and she was mad at us when she tried to take a bath.
I do think that the level of how LOVED and SAFE a child feels makes a world of difference in that child’s response to abuse. I’ve known many guys who grew up with traditional parents like mine (where the belt was the ONLY answer), but they were close to their parents growing up and still have a bond. I imagine a child (like myself) who did NOT feel loved and safe are the ones who do not have a bond right now, if ever, or in my case cut all ties to self-protect. Maybe gay boys process the “discipline” differently than straight boys. Who knows.
All I know is this:
Now there WERE some perks. I was self-taught as a pianist until age 20, but then I was able to receive scholarships for a Piano Performance major at the University of Michigan. Spending extraordinary amounts of time alone led to a very creative mind, which influences everything from my instrumental composition and performance to how I teach young children. Growing up in a house with 2 floors of over 30 rooms not including a FULL attic and basement, I knew at a very early age that money and “things” are absolutely meaningless – I knew LOVE was paramount, even though I felt little to no love around me as a child. In retrospect I think I felt that “eternal love source” God-thing inside, but I also knew that this love was NOWHERE around me.
So I hope you can see how the bond I had with music and the piano during my childhood was much more than a “normal” child’s natural connection with music. Losing my piano and my piano studio, esp. the 17 children who were also part of my family, was more than what it seems on the surface. The imagery I was constantly having, and sometimes still have, is graphic but honest:
It was as if I lost my entire family – I could not protect my entire family – and it felt as if I was forced to watch those 17 children being executed right before my eyes. It was horrific. I was also having constant images of my hands completely severed at the wrist and bleeding, figuratively losing my ability to speak, express, or function in the world.
This nightmare happened again last November under different circumstances, but this time with 24 children – BOTH instances were caused SPECIFICALLY by OUR GOVERNMENT’S refusal to INCLUDE OUR FAMILY in CIVIL LAW. This was not the usual disasters and crap we ALL experience in life that just happen – THIS WAS GOVERNMENT-CREATED SUFFERING AND ABUSE. And THAT is enough to push me over the edge where I am willing to fight the I.R.S. alone, by myself, because THIS American will NOT go to prison for refusing to be taxed without Equality. Not in this lifetime.
I will fight this one to the death IF/when it comes to that point.
It’s up to the I.R.S. now to either act or leave me alone.
I simply CANNOT and WILL NOT be abused anymore.
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