No Taxation Without Equality

- FOR MAINE -

First Posted - August 4, 2008.

Our lovely revolutionary lady is none other than award-winning journalist-broadcaster Natalie Davis.

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"If a thousand men [and women] were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood." - Thoreau

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"Let them march all they want,

as long as they continue to

pay their taxes."

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- Alexander Haig, U.S. Sec. of State, June 12, 1982

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Well, some of us have stopped marching AND paying taxes. The sheer arrogance revealed in the Haig's statement above is a rallying cry for oppressed people everywhere. I've held signs, chanted, and written letters, yet I've been kidding myself to think these tactics create any real change. (Effective) Civil Disobedience and/or Tax Revolt will certainly get our nation's attention.

Imagine if the LGBT community wrote on EVERY piece of paper currency, "Marriage Equality Now" or "Queer Tax Revolt"; suddenly the money we spend is visible. Yes, it's a passive act, but it reminds the Heterosexual Dictatorship that we also contribute to the tax base and to the overall economy.

TAX REVOLT seems best. If the money withheld was redirected to Marriage Equality organizations, and/or to the many LGBT Families who have suffered financial devastation due to marriage discrimination, all the better.

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I am constantly amazed at the ambivalence I sense when I discuss equality with others, but when I mention withholding tax everybody FREAKS OUT. I guess Americans only care when it affects their wallet. Well, start freaking out America - the unknown, unseen, silent tax resisters are growing in number every day. Between the Iraq War and Marriage Inequality, countless US citizens are being inspired to find ways to live, earn, and spend without the government's knowledge. Tax-compliance is not just based on fear, it is also based on a RESPECT for the law and for society in general, and America's politicians have lost every ounce of respect they may have had in previous generations, and its voters are lagging behind them.

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One needs to GIVE respect to EARN respect.

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Addendum - June 2, 2009 -

After spending almost a year trying to spread the IDEA that a TAX REVOLT is worth considering - if anything, for our own DIGNITY - I now realize that my "community" is nothing of the sort, and any real civil disobedience is a fantasy. Maybe when others have their lives destroyed they will "get it"; they will understand TRUE, JUSTIFIED RAGE.

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It's also very much about social class in the LGBTQ community. Rage feels different when you are hungry or cold most of the time.

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And while gay organizations may criticize me for doing things that "do not reflect the gay community" - I know that THEY never, ever truly represented me.

• I DO NOT BEG for my due civil rights.
• I DO NOT DONATE MONEY to buy my due civil rights.
• I DO NOT NEED SOCIETY'S APPROVAL before being "given" my due civil rights.
• I REFUSE TO MARCH, WRITE, CALL, BEG, BESEECH, PLEAD, or do anything but DEMAND my due civil rights, with my own TAX REVOLT being behind my demand.

"Give Me LIBERTY

(which includes Federal Equality),

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Or Give Me Death."

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Addendum - October 19, 2009 - I seriously don't think ALL of The Seattle Gays and other OUT-OUT Folk will remain peace-loving, polite folk IF Referendum 71 gets rejected.

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This is pure financial, emotional, psychological abuse - for starters - to an entire segment of society. The physical body surely suffers as well, and for what?

To appease Religious Terrorists?!

You better grow a pair, Uncle Sam, cuz you are losing the time and talents of an entire segment of society and causing more burden to the tax base. Your enabling of sustained Governmental Psychological Warfare through piecemeal-rights state-by-state is hurting the health and well-being of the LGBTQ population AND those who love us. I would suspect that this distress results is less-productivity, more days off, and a general drain on the American economy.

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My story certainly confirms it.

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The math of D.A.D.T. confirms it.

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This confirms it.

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Every POLITICIAN in America - Local/State/Federal - is turning his or her back to the cruel, unnecessary, additional financial sufferings LGBTQ folks are burdened with ON TOP OF the economic woes that everyone is facing today.

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And for what?