‘We Didn’t Go In There To Talk About Our Wedding, We Went To Talk About Our Taxes’ Says Lesbian Couple Refused Service By Preparer
“We thought it was just a boring trip to the tax office, but it turned into a lot more than that,” Samantha Brazzel told NBC affiliate WTHR.
Brazzel has used the same tax preparer for four years and suddenly when she found out she was married to a woman she refused.
Nancy Fivecoate, owner of Carter Tax Service in Russiaville, Indiana, cited her religious beliefs in justifying her decision.
“I have prepared her taxes for several years,” Fivecoate said of Bailey Brazzel in a statement shared with WTHR. “This year she came in with her wife and I declined to prepare the taxes because of my religious beliefs. I am a Christian and I believe marriage is between one man and one woman. I was very respectful to them. I told them where I thought she might be able to get her taxes prepared.”
The Brazzels story has gone viral and Fivecoates is claiming that they are trying to destroy her business.
Said NBC News: “The Brazzels said they are speaking out to draw attention to the lack of LGBTQ protections in Indiana. While several cities across the state have passed ordinances protecting residents from being discriminated against based on their sexual orientation, there is no statewide law preventing discrimination based on one’s sexual orientation or gender identity. “I don’t need anyone to agree with my lifestyle or things that I do,” Bailey Brazzel said. “But if you’re going to run a business, you should be able to work with all types of people.”
Ironically Brazzel’s home state of Michigan just introduced the “Equal Dignity for Married Taxpayers Act” in Congress, which would scrub the tax code of gendered terms like “husband” and “wife” and instead replace them with neutral words like “spouse”.
Trolls be trollin’! This was in response to my tweet about the scandals and convictions related to our current White House occupant. Seems relevant, no? pic.twitter.com/j6WWatJEiA
CAPTAIN MARVEL VERSUS MISOGYNY The movie isn’t even out yet and Captain Marvel has received misogynistic comments on Rotten Tomatoes. Says HypeBeast: “Comments such as “Brie Larsen did a lot of political statement, so my political statement will be not to see this movie,” as well as “As a white male I don’t think Brie would want me watching this movie,” and “Why Marvel decided to cast a very vocal racist and sexist aimed at white males, I’ll never know.”
“The comments follow Larson’s interview for the March 2019 issue of British Marie Claire, in which the Academy Award-winning actress spoke on the film critic industry being ‘overwhelmingly white male’ represented, as said by Stacy Smith, founder and director of the Inclusion Initiative. The backlash relates more directly to Larson’s comments at the Women in Film Crystal and Lucy Awards, where the actress said, ‘I don’t need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn’t work about A Wrinkle in Time… It wasn’t made for him! I want to know what it meant to women of color, biracial women, to teenwomen of color. Am I saying I hate white dudes? No, I am not… What I am saying is if you make a movie that is a love letter to women of color, there is an insanely low chance a woman of color will have a chance to see your movie, and review your movie.’”
PRESSING MATTERS A new company will press your ashes into a working vinyl album. “If you have the money you can press your ashes into a vinyl record, at the rate of a teaspoonful per disc. The company providing this offbeat service is And Vinyly. It was formed in the Noughties by music producer Jason Leach from Scarborough, England. A combination of family accidents involving “cremains”, a sense of his own advancing years (he’s middle-aged) and his mother working in a funeral home helped Leach come to the conclusion that vinyl was the answer. “It was not intended to be a business,” he told the BBC in 2017. “It was the result of having a bit of fun with what at the time felt like a shocking and disconcerting inevitability,” according to The Vintage News.
“As the name suggests, And Vinyly takes a light-hearted approach to the Grim Reaper. Their slogan is ‘Live on from beyond the groove!’”
HAS ADDICTION GONE VIRAL? Sandra Sing Loh says so on The Loh Down on Science over at NPR. “Retroviruses like HIV make us sick by inserting their genes into our cells. Usually, these genes cause cells to make new copies of the retrovirus. But occasionally, the genes mutate and can’t make new viruses. Five percent of human genes are mutated retroviruses that are passed down generation to generation! Could these genes be harmful? Scientists have long thought so. But, they haven’t found much in the way of evidence. Enter Gkikas Magiorkinis from the University of Athens. His hunt for harmful retroviruses led his team to some of the less touristy neighborhoods of Athens. There, they collected DNA from hundreds of intravenous drug users. Pouring over this genetic data, Magiorkinis honed in on a specific gene linked to addiction. What did he find? People addicted to drugs were TWICE as likely to have retroviral DNA mucking up their addiction gene!”
THREE BILL BOARDS IN CHINA Homosexuality was only decriminalized in 1997 in the People’s Republic of China. So it’s no surprise that Gay Conversion Therapy has taken root there. “Globally, such therapy has been discredited by a host of major health organizations and denounced by most of mainstream society, but its existence and growth in China hasn’t garnered much critical attention. According to a research conducted by several LGBT rights organizations in China, as of 2017, there were around 112 institutions across the country that publicly advertised their services of conversion therapy. A 2014 study by Beijing LGBTQ Center found out that of 1,653 respondents, 151 of them said they had contemplated seeking such therapy, mostly because of pressure from their families and people around them” according to Sup China?
In order to raise public awareness bout the unchecked proliferation of conversion therapy, “three Chinese men, artist Wǔ Lǎobái, curator Zhèng Hóngbīn, and policeman Lín Hè, together launched a crowd-funded campaign letting three trucks hit the road, each one bearing a message: on the first, “Cure a disease that is nonexistent”; on the second, “The Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders still has sexual orientation disorder”; and, lastly, “It’s been 19 years. How come?” The three messages are quotes from Lin’s diary, in which he wrote about his frustration and struggles as a gayman.”
They were influenced by Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
TRUMP’S PLAN TO END HIV Isn’t going to work in Oklahoma. Stigma around HIV and AIDS and around being gay runs deep in parts of Oklahoma, says Dr. Michelle Salvaggio, medical director of the Infectious Diseases Institute at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. The institute is one of two federally funded HIV clinics in Oklahoma; the other is in Tulsa, the second-largest city in the state reports NPR.
Dr. Michelle Salvaggio holds one of the medicines she prescribes to her patients with HIV.
“In Oklahoma, as in much of the U.S., black gay and bisexual men have the highest riskof HIV infection. Other groups with elevated risk in Oklahoma include Latinos, heterosexual women and Native Americans. Salvaggio applauds the goal of ending HIV transmissions within 10 years, but says she doesn’t think it’s feasible in Oklahoma. The plan fails to recognize the particular ways different populations experience the epidemic, she says. Native Americans in Oklahoma, for example, can’t count on the anonymity of a large health clinic. Even if Native Americans have access to HIV care at the clinic, she says, “they are literally in fear of being outed.”
“When they go into an Indian Health Service clinic, it is possible that they will see their cousin behind the desk, and their cousin’s brother-in-law working in medical records, and their niece’s boyfriend working in the pharmacy,” Salvaggio says. Even if Native Americans have access to HIV care at the clinic, she says, “they are literally in fear of being outed.”
VARIETY Choice of Gwyneth Paltrow for their Oscar cover is getting a lot ribbing being called, “equal parts amazing and ridiculous.”
WE RESIST Day number 762. “One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don’t have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day. So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.” SHAKESVILLE
WITH A NATION WIDE BLIZZARD arriving today–we yearn for poolside days.
The Oscars, RHONJ, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Gay Storyline and More TV This Week
Check out our weekly guide to TV this week, and make sure you’re catching the big premieres, crucial episodes and the stuff you won’t admit you watch when no one’s looking.
This season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey felt like a return to its wine-throwing, McMansion roots. Watch the ladies re-litigate the season’s wrongs on part one of the reunion Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern on Bravo.
Grey’s Anatomy may have been on air for what feels like an eternity, but they are just now in the midst of their first storyline for a gay, malecouple of leads. Levi and Nico’s relationship continues to evolve Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern on ABC.
If you’re not already watching the brilliant new Comedy Central series The Other Two, drop everything and catch up. Not only does the show deftly skewer the current “influencer” culture, but the relationship between Cary (played by bisexual actor Drew Tarver) and his “straight” roommate is the sort of biting commentary about the fetishization of straight guys that is rarely explored on mainstream TV. Last week’s episode featured a scathing takedown of how pop culture co-opts and exploits the LGBTQ community. Watch. This. Show. Thursday at 10:30 p.m. Eastern on Comedy Central.
Like Jennifer Lopez’s Enough meets the ’90s thriller Fear, 2018’s Breaking In fights back Saturday at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on HBO, starring Gabrielle Union.
Seven actors are nominated for Academy Awards for playing queer characters at this year’s Oscars, plus Gaga is up for a Best Actress win. The event once known as the gay Super Bowl (pre-Drag Race) brings all the glitz and glamour back Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern on ABC.
HRC ON TRUMP-PENCE ADMIN OFFICIAL’S CLAIM THEY’LL SEEK TO END CRIMINALIZATION OF SAME-SEX SEXUAL RELATIONS: Said Jeremy Kadden, HRC Senior International Policy Advocate: “Donald Trump and Mike Pence have continued to ignore the campaign of violence and murder targeting LGBTQ people in Chechnya that has stretched on for two years. They have turned away LGBTQ people fleeing violence and persecution and sent them back to countries that criminalize them, and have consistently worked to undermine the fundamental equality of LGBTQ people and our families here at home from day one. If this commitment is real, we have a lot of questions about their intentions and commitments, and are eager to see what proof and action will follow.” More from The Daily Beast.
1/ The Trump-Pence administration has consistently worked to undermine the fundamental equality of LGBTQ people and our families from day one. t.co/fKD7FTOqgM
STATEHOUSE ROUNDUP — COLORADO HOUSE PASSES TWO PRO-EQUALITY BILLS: The two bills protect LGBTQ youth from dangerous “conversion therapy” and allow trans Coloradans to update their gender marker on their birth certificate without restrictive and unnecessary surgical requirements. Both bills now head to the Colorado Senate for consideration. More from HRC.
Young people should never be subjected to dangerous “conversion therapy.” It’s also critically important trans people have the ability to ensure their legal documents match their identity.@HRC urges the Colorado Senate to pass #HB1129 & #HB1039. #COLegt.co/hf8bNhustF
Anti-equality lawmakers in Tennessee recently introduced a bill attacking marriage equality: “As a native Tennessean, it’s disappointing to see lawmakers pushing more mean, pointless legislation that would do nothing except single out LGBTQ people in an effort to make us feel less than equal,” said HRC Press Secretary Nick Morrow (@NRMorrow). More from WVLT.
Twelve West Virginia mayors are calling on the state legislature to pass non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people. More from The Herald-Dispatch.
ICYMI — The South Dakota House of Representatives last week passed a discriminatory anti-trans bill, which effectively bars public school teachers from instructing students in grades K-7 about gender identity or gender expression. More from Care2.
WHAT WE’RE READING WEDNESDAY — TRANS ADVOCATE MONICA ROBERTS WANTS TO ENSURE TRANS COMMUNITY IS GIVEN DIGNITY IN DEATH: She (@transgriot) talks with Samantha Allen (@SLAwrites) about the epidemic of violence against transgender people, and her work to prevent misgendering in police reports and news stories. More from The Daily Beast.
Yesterday, Roberts’ blog was taken down without explanation. It was restored later in the day. More from TransGriot.
TransGriot is back up! Thank you to everyone who worked to make that happen, offered support, and let me vent. t.co/VBPA0oF095
SCHOOL DISTRICT SUED BY GAVIN GRIMM MAY FINALLY END BAN ON TRANS STUDENTS USING RESTROOMS ALIGNED WITH THEIR GENDER IDENTITY: The Gloucester County (Va.) School Board met yesterday to discuss the possibility. More from The Associated Press.
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIR TOM PEREZ PRAISES LGBTQ ELECTEDS & CAUCUS MEMBERS AT ANNUAL WINTER MEETING: More from The Georgia Voice.
Newly-elected Democratic governors are already working hard for LGBTQ equality: Governors in Kansas, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin have signed executive orders protecting LGBTQ state employees. More from Rewire.
ICYMI — HRC RELEASED ITS BLACK AND AFRICAN AMERICAN YOUTH REPORT AT THE SIXTH ANNUAL TIME TO THRIVE CONFERENCE: More from Los Angeles Blade.
TAX PREPARER REFUSES TO SERVE MARRIED SAME-SEX COUPLE: “I didn’t go in there to talk about my marriage. I went in to file my taxes, that was it…it’s all I wanted,” said Bailey Brazzel, whose regular tax preparer refused to serve her and her wife, Samantha. More from WTHR.
GLOBAL EQUALITY NEWS
ALTRINCHAM FC SE PONE LA CAMISETA ARCOIRIS PARA APOYAR AL COLECTIVO LGBTQ: Más de Milenio.
Well after a day off yesterday, I’ve spent today trawling through the huge amount of tweets, emails and messages that we’ve received. What a fantastic day we had on Saturday to bring awareness to the Football v Homophobia campaign @FvHtweets there are so many people to thank pic.twitter.com/szQbuHPu9X
READING RAINBOW – Bookmark now to read on your lunch break!
Pink News interviews transgender actress Talisa Garcia (@talisagarcia1); Salon covers how Free Mom Hugs founder Sarah Cunningham became a “stand-in mom” at same-sex weddings (@MamaBearOk)
