McCollum, along with 74 members of Congress, signed a letter that says the agency has a responsibility to provide information for same-sex couples, who encounter complicated tax statuses because of inconsistencies in tax law between the states and federal government.

Same-sex couples who have legal relationships in at least 15 states through marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships aren’t recognized by the federal government because of the Defense of Marriage Act. That makes filing taxes much more complicated for those couples.

In fact, in some states, the IRS is inaccurately penalizing same-sex couples. In Nevada, Washington and California, which have community property deduction laws, the IRS has improperly assessed fines against couples who claim that deduction, because the IRS systems don’t recognize what would otherwise be a legal deduction.

“The LGBT community still faces discrimination in this country and that is unacceptable. In this case, it’s even more disturbing when this discrimination comes from our federal government,” McCollum said in a statement Friday. “The IRS has the ability to provide federal tax guidance to same-sex couples, and it should have done so years ago. The LGBT community deserves to be treated fairly and equally by the U.S. government not only for federal tax purposes but in any other situation.”

The letter presses the IRS to come up with a set of guidelines to aid same-sex couples in filing their taxes.

“The IRS has the ability to provide specific guidance to ease the complexity and uncertainty surrounding these couples,” the letter states. “While full equality cannot be achieved without repealing DOMA, this guidance will provide significant relief to hundreds of thousands of taxpayers, and save critical resources by avoiding unnecessary audits and inappropriate enforcement actions.”

McCollum Ellison letter on LGBT taxes –

Fifty-six percent of same-sex couples live in Santa Fe or Bernalillo Counties. About two-thirds are female couples and one-third are male couples. About one-quarter of the couples are raising children and three-quarters are not.

Only Vermont, Massachusetts, California and Oregon have higher proportions of same-sex couples, according to the analysis.

New Mexico offers no legal recognition for same-sex couples. A Public Policy Polling survey released in early July showed that forty-two percent of voters indicated they thought gay marriage should be legal, while 49 percent thought it should be illegal. However, when asked about civil unions and gay marriage, 37 percent said gay marriage should be legal, 31 percent said civil unions should be legal and 30 percent favored no legal recognition for same-sex couples at all.

Reacting to a rising tide of anger from gay and lesbian supporters at a series of slights and deferred promises, President Obama will tomorrow extend some benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.

The move, which begins to mirror the policy of many large corporations, will have an immediate effect for many workers, but it is a deeply reactive response to a core Democratic group whose concerns have been festering for six months. The presidential memorandum  — scheduled for signing [Wednesday] at 5:45 p.m., may in the short term, give Joe Biden something positive to say at a June 25 fundraiser that has seen prominent guests drop out, a host sharply attack the administration, and which is expected to be marked by protests.

However, the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the federal government from extending health and retirement benefits to same-sex couples, so the benefits are more likely to be marginal — like relocation assistance.

New Hampshire’s Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that would legalize same-sex marriage after an amendment was added that prohibits polygamy and marriage of family members, among other measures.

Governor John Lynch has not indicated whether he will veto the bill, which passed in a 13-11 vote and would make New Hampshire the nation’s fifth state where gay marriage is legal. But the Democrat has expressed opposition to the measure.

The bill passed the state’s House of Representatives on March 26 but looked set for near certain defeat in the Senate before the amendment, which appeared to mollify some critics in the Democrat-controlled chamber.

The last-minute changes to the legislation would allow clergy to decline to marry homosexual couples and give couples the freedom to either keep the words “bride” and “groom” on marriage licenses, or simply use the word “spouse” instead.

Good thing they got those polygamy (which I’m guessing was probably already illegal) and incest bans in there. If the other states that have legalized gay marriage have taught us anything, it’s that same-sex unions are really just a smokescreen for the true goal: gay sibling marriage!

Still a good day, though.

Justice Mark S. Cady wrote the court’s decision in the landmark case Varnum v. Brien, in which six same-sex couples sued Polk County Recorder Timothy Brien for not issuing them marriage licenses. Polk County Judge Robert Hanson found for the plaintiffs, but he delayed his ruling pending a decision from the Supreme Court.

“On our review, we hold the Iowa marriage statute violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution,” the Supreme Court’s decision said. The decision upheld Polk County Judge Robert Hanson’s initial ruling more than a year ago.

To determine whether Iowa’s marriage law violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, the court chose to apply the “intermediate scrutiny” test, which is most often applied in gender discrimination cases.

Statute not “substantially related” to “important governmental interest”

“To survive intermediate scrutiny, the law must not only further an important governmental interest and be substantially related to that interest,” says the Iowa Supreme Court’s opinion, “but the justification for the classification must be genuine and must not depend on broad generalizations.”

In the end, justices found that Iowa’s definition of marriage did not pass intermediate scrutiny.

Polk County had argued that Iowa’s ban on same-sex marriage served several important governmental interests, but the court disagreed. They rejected the notion that “maintaining traditional marriage” was “important.”

The court agreed with Polk County’s argument that government has an important interest in promoting an “optimal environment to raise children,” but they concluded that Iowa’s definition of marriage was both “under-inclusive” and “over-inclusive” as it relates to that goal, because the statute disqualifies couples who would be good parents, and it allows two people who would be bad parents to marry, so long as they are not of the same sex. The Iowa law is therefore not “substantially related” to the government’s interest in raising children, the court determined.

The court also rejected Polk County’s claim that excluding same-sex couples from marriage serves the important governmental interest in procreation. “Even if possibly true, the link between exclusion of gay and lesbian people from marriage and increased procreation is far too tenuous to withstand heightened scrutiny,” the court held.

The court also rejected several more “important governmental objectives” presented by Polk County, concluding that “the sexual-orientation-based classification under the marriage statute does not substantially further any of the objectives” that the county presented.

Perhaps most interestingly, the court spent time in its decision addressing religious concerns with same-sex marriage, even though Polk County did not make it an issue in its case. Ultimately, they offered this conclusion:

As a result, civil marriage must be judged under our constitutional standards of equal protection and not under religious doctrines or the religious views of individuals. This approach does not disrespect or denigrate the religious views of many Iowans who may strongly believe in marriage as a dual-gender union, but considers, as we must, only the constitutional rights of all people, as expressed by the promise of equal protection for all. We are not permitted to do less and would damage our constitution immeasurably by trying to do more.

Civil unions likely unconstitional

After deeming Iowa’s civil marriage statute violates individuals’ constitutional rights, the court turned its attention to the appropriate remedy. Justices considered the possibility of a separate classification of civil marriage specifically for same-sex couples — e.g., a “civil union” provision — and rejected it:

A new distinction based on sexual orientation would be equally suspect and difficult to square with the fundamental principles of equal protection embodied in our constitution. This record, our independent research, and the appropriate equal protection analysis do not suggest the existence of a justification for such a legislative classification that substantially furthers any governmental objective. Consequently, the language in Iowa Code section 595.2 limiting civil marriage to a man and a woman must be stricken from the statute, and the remaining statutory language must be interpreted and applied in a manner allowing gay and lesbian people full access to the institution of civil marriage.

Rather than throw the issue back to the state legislature to craft a new definition of marriage, the court’s decision requires no additional steps before it is scheduled to take effect in 21 days.

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Chase Martyn is the editor of TWI’s sister site, The Iowa Independent.