Have you actually calculated the amount of money you have paid because you're gay?

I did recently, and my ballpark estimate is $100,000 over the past 20 years. I am counting the years that I have been in relationships that would have been marriage if it had been available to me. This includes one relationship in which I supported my partner through 5 years of college and paid for her health care, before domestic partner benefits were available from my employer. I, of course, was not able to file taxes jointly with her, so was not able to benefit from the fact that she had no income during those five years, and a lower income than mine during the later years in which she had a job.

It also includes my current relationship in which our incomes are disparate and we would benefit greatly from filing jointly. For the domestic partner benefits that we pay I included the amount that is over and above what straight couples pay, and the taxes on the imputed income of the benefit. And it covers the legal costs of drawing up papers to attempt to match some of the protections afforded automatically by marriage.

How much do you figure you have paid that you would not have had to had you been able to marry?

code right, we save money by not being married and filing separately. Is that right? Here's hoping that Obama's new tax plan will allow equality for all. In all areas.

If there is a big gap between income levels, then you are generally better off filing as a married couple, if you were married. With my (now ex) partner, we paid about 4-5 grand more a year in taxes than we would have if we were married.

In addition, for married couples, if one is on the other's health plan, everything is tax deductible. In my case, my contribution to his portion is not deductible, and I get TAXED as income on the amount my company contributes.

If one of you makes more than the other then you benefit GREATLY by filing jointly. You also benefit if you take advantage of employer provided healthcare coverage. (Not to mention that you benefit by not having to pay for legal work to cover wills and powers of attorney and other things that are automatically covered if you are married.)

favor being married, unless you have very different incomes.

My biggest beef these days is that my daughter attends a very progressive college that treats my spouse and I both as parents (even though we were expressly denied the right to create a legal relationship between her and my daughter).

Their philosophy is that because THEY recognize our relationship, then they are entitled to count both of our incomes and resources as available to pay tuition. I have tried (and not been successful) in making them understand that although it is wonderful that THEY treat us as a family, our family does not live in isolation within the confines of the college. The reality is that our family has additional expenses because the rest of the world does not recognize us as a family - and we should not bear the burden of larger family resources when we are denied the benefits associated with being recognized as a family.

if we are never able to marry, is that they cannot count my income when our son applies to college.

I cannot believe that they can get away with that! That's a real travesty. Not only was your daughter not protected because your partner was not allowed legal rights over her, AND because of the money you've lost and not been able to save for her benefit because of your inability to marry, now BOTH of your incomes are counted against her in regards to student loans and tuition? That's really quite insane.

And what really hurts is that this is my alma mater - I had been making relatively large donations every year since I graduated. I haven't figured out whether we will donate while she is in college or not. I'm pretty peeved, at the moment.

Choose your colleges carefully. Some allow you to declare your family affiliation - others don't. Our experience was that those that allow you to choose to have the college treat you as a family for other purposes also require income and asset information from both. The school my daughter is at is the only one where we didn't get to choose whether to be treated as a family (it was assumed, and the income and asset information was required). The only bright spot is that they require it of unmarried heterosexual couples, as well.

to alleviate some of the financial pressure. I'm pretty stunned that a progressive college would not be able to see how unfair this is.

You absolutely should not donate while she's in college, you're donating enough simply by being discriminated against.

I really do appreciate the heads up though. Our son is only six, so hopefully, the situation will have changed by the time he is in college. If not though, we will definitely be basing our decision on whether or not the college counts both our incomes against us. With all I've already wasted that I shouldn't have had to, we would have enough to pay for his college free and clear. I don't think most people who dismiss our desire to marry really understand all the ramifications.