Even prisoners are entitled to something for their tax dollars, namely a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.
After the passage of Proposition 8 this week, gay Californians will be expected to continue behaving like dutiful, tax-paying citizens despite having equal rights withheld from them by their state government, to say nothing of gay individuals in Arizona and Florida, who also lost the right to marry. Gay couples in Arkansas are now prohibited from adopting children, a ridiculous notion when you consider the number of children in the world who desperately need a good home and loving parents.
So why should any of these individuals bother paying state taxes if their state refuses to treat them as equals?
When American slaves were not recognized as equal citizens under the U.S. Constitution, they were not required to pay taxes--their owners paid taxes on their behalf.
If Californians and residents supporting ballot initiatives similar to Prop 8 in other states don't want gay citizens to have equal rights, perhaps they should pay higher taxes to compensate. After all, if straight people in support of Prop 8 feel so above their gay brothers and sisters that they are somehow entitled to more rights, they should have to pay for those rights. Otherwise, why stop with banning gay marriage? As Stephanie Miller pointed out on her show this morning, the Bible prohibits interracial marriage. It prohibits eating shrimp. Why not ban those things? I'm sure if you look hard enough, you can find that almost anyone is a distant product of interracial marriage (or at the very least, has consumed shrimp at some point in their life). If the God-fearin' folk want so badly for God to have a hand in governing our nation, they better put down the shrimp fajitas and start dating exclusively within their own race.
If we aren't going to allow gay people the full rights of citizenship in America, then we shouldn't be allowed to tax them for living a less-privileged life here, fair and square, and I say this as a straight, Chicago woman whose parents are divorced and whose grandparents were a biracial couple.