Living in Sin

"It's hard being married
and living in sin.
It's hard to determine
just which state I am in"    

-Janis Ian

I get so confused about my marital status when I fill out forms. I never know if I should mark "married" or "single". The Wifester and I got married, as most of you know, in Canada in 2007. We have a marriage license. But when I filled out the financial aid forms for The Cleveland Clinic, they marked me as single, because the state of Ohio does not recognize our marriage. When I applied for SSDI, they asked me if I was married. I said yes, then explained I am married to a woman, with a marriage license from Ontario, Canada. They called me single, until they decided that they need to base payment eligibility off of income, in which case they considered The Wifester's income. I don't think it's fair that they can call me single for the purposes of denying my eligibility for "family services" but call me married for the purposes of counting her income against me in determining how much money I need or am eligible to receive.

Then there's the passports.
Oh boy, there's another one. The US Federal Government doesn't recognize our marriage. So to them we are each single. At least 19 other countries do recognize our marriage, and register us as either "married" or "domestic partners". But it is up to us to fill in the form. If we mark "single" to accommodate our home country, then Canada can say we have falsified our documents. If we say "married", are we going to have trouble getting back into the US because to them we've falsified our passports, should we ever get to travel again?

I'll tell you one thing. It ain't easy being gay. But I sure wouldn't have it any other way.