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LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Friday, April 29, 2005
D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and members of an ad hoc group of gay lobbyists sought
to calm members of Congress over the city’s position on gay marriage recognition
after the D.C. attorney general issued an advisory opinion saying same-sex couples
married in Massachusetts could file a joint D.C. tax return.
Williams met with Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) on April 20, the same day
Brownback told the Washington Post and the Kansas City Star he was troubled
over the tax filing opinion by D.C. Attorney General Robert Spagnoletti.
“I have been and continue to be a strong believer and protector of traditional
marriage,” the Post quoted Brownback as saying. “This issue has
now been moving across the country for several years, and I guess we will deal
with something now in D.C.”
Brownback is the newly designated chair of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee
on the District, which must approve the D.C. budget each year. He has been one
of the Senate’s strongest backers of a constitutional amendment to ban
same-sex marriage and a longstanding opponent of gay rights legislation.
The Kansas senator’s comments added fuel to a longstanding disagreement
among D.C. gay activists over whether the city should push ahead with gay marriage
recognition or hold back on the issue to avert possible congressional interference.
At the request of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance, Williams has resisted
releasing a separate opinion prepared by Spagnoletti last summer stating whether
D.C. has legal authority under its current laws to recognize same-sex marriages
performed in Massachusetts.
Williams said last week that his meeting with Brownback, which had been scheduled
before Spagnoletti’s tax filing opinion surfaced in the news media, was
cordial and productive. But he also told the Post that the marriage recognition
issue is highly controversial and could jeopardize the city’s budget agenda
and existing domestic partner legislation if the city mishandles the issue.
Paul Straus, D.C.’s “shadow” senator, who lobbies Congress
on behalf of the District, and members of an ad hoc group of gay rights lobbyists
that advocates against congressional interference in D.C. on gay issues, said
they were optimistic this week that Brownback would wait for D.C. to clarify
its position on marriage recognition before taking any action against the city.
Spagnoletti issued his tax filing opinion on April 14 to a D.C. gay male couple
that married in Massachusetts last June. The two men, Edward G. Horvath, 54,
and Richard G. Neidich, 64, contacted Spagnoletti for guidance over whether
D.C. law permitted them to file a joint D.C. income tax return.
Spagnoletti transmitted his advisory opinion to the couple through an e-mail
sent by a member of his staff. The opinion states, “Same-sex married spouses
may file a joint D.C. Form 40 if they hold a good-faith belief that they are
a validly married couple under the laws of Massachusetts.”
However, the opinion also states that the D.C. Office of Tax & Revenue
reserves the authority to review joint returns filed by same-sex married couples
to determine whether they should be accepted or rejected.
Horvath said this week that he and his partner have yet to file a joint return
but plan to do so shortly. He said the couple each filed forms seeking an extension
of the April 15 tax-filing deadline.
Williams said he would consult with Spagnoletti and Natwar M. Gandhi, the city’s
chief financial officer, over whether a policy of joint tax returns by married
same-sex couples is consistent with D.C. tax law.
The mayor said at his weekly news briefing on April 27 that he is still deliberating
over the issue but expects to reach a decision soon.
Members of the D.C. Appropriations Working Group, an ad hoc group of officials
with local and national gay rights and AIDS organizations, said they met during
the past week with aides to members of Congress to discuss the fallout from
the joint tax filing opinion.
The group has worked for nearly 10 years to lobby Congress against enacting
anti-gay amendments to the D.C. appropriations bill, said Carl Schmid, a gay
Republican activist and lobbyist who helped found the group. Its members include
representatives from the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance, the Whitman-Walker
Clinic, the Human Rights Campaign and Log Cabin Republicans.
Schmid said he met Monday with members of Brownback’s staff, and came
away from the meeting feeling hopeful that Brownback had no immediate plans
to take action against the city on the tax filing issue.
“They feel the Post story was overblown,” Schmid said. Although
Brownback staffers do not dispute the Post’s direct quotes of the senator’s
remarks, Schmid said, the staffers don’t consider Brownback’s comments
as a warning for Williams.
But Schmid said sentiment in the Republican-controlled Congress is against
same-sex marriage, and D.C. faces the threat of interference from Congress if
it appears to be moving toward recognizing same-sex marriages from Massachusetts.
“I don’t think D.C. should be doing anything right now on marriage,”
Schmid said. “We shouldn’t be out front on this. Let other states
do it.”
Straus said he listened to Brownback’s interview with reporters from
the Post and the Kansas City Star on April 20, following a hearing of the Senate
Appropriations subcommittee on D.C., which Brownback chaired for the first time
since GOP leaders picked him to lead the panel.
“Brownback never brought this issue up during that hearing,” Straus
said. “He kept to the topic at hand, which was funding for the D.C. court
system.”
According to Straus, Brownback’s comments on D.C. marriage issues came
in response to questions after the hearing by reporters from the Post and the
Star.
“We know where he stands nationally on this issue,” Straus said.
“We hope he doesn’t use his D.C. subcommittee role to advance his
position on D.C.”
Brownback’s press office did not return calls seeking comment by Blade
press time.
Christopher Barron, communications director for Log Cabin Republicans, the
national gay GOP group, said he joined members of the D.C. Appropriations Working
Group in a meeting Monday with staffers of Rep. Joseph Knollenberg (R-Mich.),
chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee in charge of D.C. Barron said
the Knollenberg staffers seemed receptive to the working group members’
request that the subcommittee refrain from approving amendments to the D.C.
budget bill pertaining to same-sex marriage.
“We tried to make it understood that D.C. did not want to poke a finger
in Congress’ eye,” Barron said. “We said this was really a
discrete issue of D.C. tax law and it was still hypothetical because no final
decision has been made.”
Horvath said he and his partner want Williams to move ahead with full approval
of D.C. recognition of same-sex marriages from Massachusetts as well as joint
tax filings for same-sex married couples.
“If Brownback is going to do something bad, then we should come back
and do something stronger,” he said. “At some point D.C. residents
have to stand up for their rights.”
In an e-mail to supporters last week, Rick Rosendall, GLAA’s vice president
for political affairs, outlined the group’s opposition to pursuing gay
marriage rights in D.C. at this time.
“GLAA strongly supports equal civil marriage rights, but does not support
pushing for it in D.C. at present due to the political situation,” Rosendall
wrote.
“GLAA’s alternative to pushing for marriage now is not to cower
or to hide under a rock for the next decade, but to continue pushing for incremental
gains for registered domestic partners. The gains we have already achieved,
such as the ability of District citizens to add their domestic partners to their
deeds without facing a heavy tax penalty, are very real benefits that we would
risk losing by adopting an all-or-nothing stance or demanding full marriage
now and damn the consequences.”
Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.
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