Today’s New York Times has a ground-breaking examination of the costs of being a same sex couple. As “The High Price of Being a Gay Couple,” begins, let me also state that the fight for marriage equality is a fight for civil rights, and for what’s right, not a fight for financial gain. But The Times puts it best: “we see the world through the prism of money.”
Bottom line, the Times created a hypothetical couple’s cost of “being a gay couple,” and determined that over the lifetime of their relationship, it would cost them up to $467,562 more as a same sex couple than as a straight couple. “Best case” scenario would cost them an additional $41,196.
Ironically, the same sex couple would pay less in income taxes: about $15,000 to $112,000 less. But that doesn’t outweigh the other costs of being a gay couple.
Not unsurprisingly, health insurance is the greatest cost factor. The same sex couple will pay approximately $28,000 to $212,000 more, just for being gay.
The Times piece neglects to specifically mention the elephant in the room: thanks to DOMA, The Defense of Marriage Act, there are 1138 federal benefits afforded to straight married couples, that same sex couples are prohibited from accessing.
And only slightly does “The High Price of Being a Gay Couple” mention the emotional c0sts, which are many. But it does include this:
“As for the emotional costs of living with these added complexities, they can’t be quantified. Frederick Hertz, a lawyer in Oakland, Calif., who works with same-sex couples, likens heterosexual marriage to being in the car pool lane. “Being part of a same-sex couple, it’s always stop. Wait. Pay a toll,†he said.”
Overall, however, it’s an excellent piece, long overdue, and we’re grateful The Times took on such a large and important task.