Children fall through the safety net. Because many safety net programs apply antiquated definitions of family, a child with LGBT parents might be denied benefits provided to his or her non-LGBT counterpart simply because the child’s parents are LGBT. Most government safety net programs use a narrow definition of family tied to marital status, which often excludes same-sex partners and non-legally recognized parents and children. The result is that financially struggling families with LGBT or unmarried parents cannot accurately reflect their household size or economic resources and may be denied adequate assistance.
LGBT families face a higher tax burden. A series of tax credits and deductions are designed to help all families, regardless of economic circumstance, ease the financial costs of raising children. Tax law, however, also uses a narrow definition of family that excludes LGBT families. This exclusion usually results in a significantly higher tax burden for LGBT families.”
– A report from the Center for American Progress quoted in Karen Ocamb’s “The Occupy Movement and Why LGBTs Should Care” on LGBTPOV.
Image via kate*
GOD (gay old dude)
She lost me with her opening line, “LGBT families are more likely to be poor.” Say what? Sorry, I don’t buy it. Common sense dictates that if you’re poor, you don’t go around having kids, and most gay people who venture into parenthood tend to be of the responsible sort. This woman’s just playing the victim card to appeal to our base.
Jim Hlavac
Mush, utter mush. The Occupy Wall Street miscreants are against capitalism, against shopping for heaven’s sake; gays love shopping! We have jobs; for we can’t get any government handouts for being “gay” — These violent, filthy, nasty people are being supported by the Communist Party, the Nazis, the Socialists — and all those regimes, worldwide, are the most horrific when it comes to gay folks. No, I will not allow my good gay self to be allied with this rabble of a pajama party that makes no sense. You can’t be “for” those who are “against” the establishment and the bank bailouts — and then be “for” Obama who was is the establishment and “for” the bank bailouts. No, this is dire nonsense. If you despise bank bailouts, join the Tea Party. If you are for bank bailouts, join the 1% — but don’t conflate the two to bring about the Marxist state. Egad.
Anyone who wants to be for that rabble in the parks can have at it — but don’t attack the word “gay” to it — not me, never. I have too many relatives in Prague, Vklos u Kyjov, Frydek-Mistek, Tabor, Kutna Hora, Mlada Boleslav — all cities in the Czech Republica — to whom I can speak to in Czech (checete ucit?, do you want to learn?) — who have all suffered the ravages of Commies and Nazis, and socialists — nope, not me. Don’t use my name or whom I smooch as part of this political crud.
No, now is the time to point out — gayness has nothing to do with any of this — and it is wrong for any liberal gay person to now somehow say “gays” are with this rabble violent lazy hypocritical dangerous mush. Egad. Must I now fight gay folks over this too? Yeesh. I want the rabble swept away, let them get jobs — I got one.
Katt
@ Gay Old Dude
You are dead wrong! I know so many same sex couples with children from previous heterosexual marriages/relationships. A lot of lesbians who came out later in life have children with deadbeat dads. A lot of of gay men have children who they are raising on their own because the mothers are not present as well. Not every gayby is born from testubes and/or surrogate mothers in West Hollywood. Many gay people tried to conform to the heterosexual majority and had children young or in bad situations. This increases the chance of poverty taking place.
GOD (gay old dude)
@Katt: If, as you say, “Many gay people tried to conform to the heterosexual majority and had children young or in bad situations,” then I stand by my statement. Regardless of your status in life, you reap what you sow, and if you have no job skills and you’re going to have a kid so that you can play house with your honey-bunny, then you’re going to live in poverty. Smart people know this. If you’re in a relationship that ends and you can’t afford to raise the kids, then you don’t get the kids. This is a perfect example of what’s wrong about political correctness: instead of being reasonable or rational, everyone wants to make everyone else feel good about themselves, consequences be damned.
Sergio
@GOD (gay old dude): You make zero sense. Plenty of people in poverty have children because of lack of sexual education and health services also linked to poverty.
The whole “work hard American dream” assumes that everyone is starting on the same level, which is obviously not the case. People in poverty are perpetually screwed by the system, and it’s uncompassionate fellows like you that just make it ridiculously hard to spread awareness of these maladies in society. I also will add that your logic is flawed, slow, insipid, and just plain wrong.
xander
@GOD (gay old dude) : If you have better data than does Karen Ocamb, please provide relevant citations. Until you provide them, we can rest assured that all you have is a thinly-concealed agenda, personal impressions and second-hand anecdotes.
I look forward to the favour of a reply.
anna
@ gay old dude
May I inquire as to whether you are male or female? I ask because your comment sounds like someone who has never had to deal with finding proper healthcare as a woman, let alone a woman below poverty line. our government and healthcare systems makes it increasingly hard for women to afford access to things like birth control. bottom line is sometimes you can’t prevent having kids , no matter how good your job skills are. If it comes to the issue of seperating with the person that you had the children if you are both in the same economic position generally it comes to, whats better: you doing the best you can and raising the kids or saying you can’t afford them and letting them go into the system . which would you do? this is a problem that is un discrimnatory . It can happen no matter how hard you are trying to hold you self up, no matter how job savy you are, whether your straight or gay. the point is a straight family would be eligable for goverment assitantance where an lgbt family wont.
anna
Try using some prospective when you make a comment.
Riker
Correct me if i’m wrong, but how does bisexuality come into play here? They’re either in a heterosexual relationship, in which case they are no different from a heterosexual couple, or a homosexual relationship, in which case they are covered under “gay and trans relationships”. Just another instance of the GLBT myth being forced on us.
@anna: I’m not sure if English is your native language, but the “dude” in his name strongly implies maleness.
GOD (gay old dude)
@anna: Your statement, “bottom line is sometimes you can’t prevent having kids,” is so absurd I had to call friends and tell them to log on to read it. Really? Because of, what, immaculate conception? And you expect to be taken seriously? Too, too funny. No, the “bottom line” is that if you get pregnant and you can’t afford the kid, you abort it or submit it for adoption, you don’t cry poverty and make the rest of us pay for it.
(and by the way, on this planet “dude” refers to men)
Katt
@ Gay Old Dude
Really!?! “Smart people know this. If you’re in a relationship that ends and you can’t afford to raise the kids, then you don’t get the kids.” Have you been living under a rock? We still live in a society where women are expected to reproduce almost immediately when married. In this same society, men feel free to jump ship and leave women with the responsibility to raise the children they helped make. There is no saying “I can’t afford kids, you take them” to a man who just leaves or would neglect or abuse those children. Most parents only under the most desperate situation would give up their kids. So what happens? They make due! They scrap by (live in poverty), because a real parent never gives up on their kids, nor gives them to a corrupt and negligent Foster system. As for men, what can they do when the mother dies, abandons them, or is unfit? The are often left with the responsibility of parenting and providing. I don’t know what world you live in, but 50k+ jobs aren’t growing on trees and the reproduction occurs no matter how rice/educated a person may be.
Katt
@ Gay Old Dude
Really!?! “Smart people know this. If you’re in a relationship that ends and you can’t afford to raise the kids, then you don’t get the kids.” Have you been living under a rock? We still live in a society where women are expected to reproduce almost immediately when married. In this same society, men feel free to jump ship and leave women with the responsibility to raise the children they helped make. There is no saying “I can’t afford kids, you take them” to a man who just leaves or would neglect or abuse those children. Most parents only under the most desperate situation would give up their kids. So what happens? They make due! They scrap by (live in poverty), because a real parent never gives up on their kids, nor gives them to a corrupt and negligent Foster system. As for men, what can they do when the mother dies, abandons them, or is unfit? They are often left with the responsibility of parenting and providing. I don’t know what world you live in, but 50k+ jobs aren’t growing on trees and the reproduction occurs no matter how rich/educated a person may be.
anna
Actually dude has become a very ambiguous term in society, similar to guys. Also it is not out of the way on a website like this to question whether someone has experienced being a woman in our health care system. regardless of their screen name. No I can’t be expected to be taken seriously by someone who is so irrational. Also some women are not able to take birth control, you can be allergic to birth control and while condoms are effective most of the time sometimes they do break; logically this can result in a child. While I would be comfortable having an abortion some would not and there is always a sense of uncertainty in adoption, if this kid turns out in the foster system and its life is ruined it is on your conscience. And by the way you would have to pay for it if our system didn’t fundamentally screw a portion of the population, not everyone is in poverty because they don’t try, some come from a tradition of poverty, your discriminatory comments make it obvious you’ve never had to experience that.
Adman
OK, why do you assume I don’t care? Is it the unmerited self assurance of straight “revolutionaries” who assume I aspire to something so different that I am some kind of alien, to be dealt with as an unfortunate casualty at best, or exposed and discarded only for me and mine to clean up the mess? Why do YOU care what I think? It’s not it’s ever really been an issue before, so when you pick my brain I tell you something boring and beige and get on with life whele you go away.
Your 3500 year-old breeder/rape vendetta to kill life on this planet will undoubtedly find countless outlets some other “progressive” way without me, guaranteed. Memo to straight people: What is it about YOU SUCK that’s so hard to understand? You can’t have my ideas and life blood today, kids. This man isn’t free, get it? I’m sure you’re all baffled.