al Security survivor benefits for a surviving partner and children after the death of one partner;
exemptions from property tax increases in the event of the death of a partner (offered in some states to surviving spouses);
automatic access to pensions and other retirement accounts by surviving partner;
access to deceased partner's veteran's benefits;
ability to roll deceased partner's 401(k) funds into an individual retirement account without paying up to 70% of it in taxes and penalties; and
right to sue for wrongful death of a deceased partner.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) determined in 2004 that allowing civil marriage for same-gender couples would have a positive effect on the federal budget.21 The CBO found that allowing same-gender couples to marry would increase federal income tax revenues by $400 million annually to the end of 2010, resulting largely from the “marriage penalty tax.” Although Social Security payments and spending on insurance coverage for partners of federal workers would rise over time, other expenditures such as Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income would decrease. The net result would be a savings of nearly $1 billion per year. The Williams Institute, a think tank at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law, had similar findings on the federal budget and for several state budgets.22
Because of the complex nature of the issues involved in this sociopolitical debate, psychosocial effects can be multifaceted. These effects can be observed at the personal, couple, parental, child, family, and even community levels.
As children, many gay and lesbian persons experience considerable isolation, peer rejection, ridicule, harassment, and/or depression at some time. At least 47% of gay and lesbian teens have seriously considered suicide, and 36% have actually attempted suicide.23 They may experience rejection by their families, homelessness, maltreatment in school, and violence. As adults, gay and lesbian people continue to experience social marginalization, discrimination, and hate-crime violence.
Nationwide political and religious debate over same-gender marriage has intensified an already unstable climate for gay men and lesbians in our society. The lack of societal tolerance, acceptance, and support that gay and lesbian individuals, couples, and their children experience can and does affect their psychosocial and physical health and safety.
Indeed, the US Department of Justice, in its 1997 publication A Policymaker's Guide to Hate Crimes, noted that “[a] host of factors may create a climate in which people, motivated by their biases, take criminal action. Such factors include poor or uncertain economic conditions, racial stereotypes in films and on television, hate-filled discourse on talk shows or in political advertisements, the use of racial code language such as ‘welfare mothers’ and ‘inner city thugs,’ and an individual's personal experiences with members of particular minority groups.”24
Similarly, children whose parents are of the same gender may experience social marginalization and become the objects of ridicule and harassment by other children and adults who do not understand or who disapprove of gay and lesbian parenting. Children experiencing this type of treatment may not know how to seek, or where to find, support. Although same-gender couples are raising children in 96% of all the counties in the United States, support services and trusted individuals are not available in all of these areas. Efforts to prohibit the establishment of student groups known as “gay-straight alliances” in various school districts and states may serve to worsen this situation.
PSYCHOSOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GAY AND LESBIAN PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN
Most children who have 1 or 2 gay or lesbian parents were born in the context of a heterosexual relationship. That relationship may still exist or may have been dissolved; if the latter, either or both partners may have found new partners of the same or different gender. More and more gay and lesbian adults are bringing children into lo