Same-Sex Households
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
It happens again
. . .
So I have to renew my FASFA in Janurary. Well, in the state of Oregon Julie and I have a domestic partnership, however, it's not recognized at a federal level obviously, so since I am not 24 STILL have to put down my parents information on the god damn forms.
I have 0% dependance on them, they pay for not one cent of my college tuition, I am a married independant woman, yet since I am gay, and not straight my marriage doesn't 'technically' qualify me as an independant for financial aid.
I am sooooo frustrated right now. If only my marriage was recognized, I'd get more aid that I genuinely needed, but no this must be too much to ask for as well.
Here I am a second class citizen, again. Do I need to pay my taxes?
Warning
No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
Re: It happens again
I know, I just like venting to my group of ladies who 'get it'. It makes me feel better. Janet, thanks for reading my angry post.
that really stinks.
but hey, look at the bright side: you also won't have to claim her income once you are 24, right? unless something changes soon at the federal level--and i for one am not holding my breath.
I don't know how much this will help your situation, but might help someone else - I dealt with this for all three years of law school. They require you to report your parental income until you are 30, which is ridiculous, but that's the rule for applying for private aid. They also require you to fill out both a FAFSA and a private aid application (PROFILE). I had to put that I was single on the FAFSA since my marriage isn't recognized federally, but the PROFILE is not a federal government form, so I didn't want to lie on that and say I was unmarried when I actually am married according to the state of Massachusetts. I called my school's financial aid office and explained the situation to them, and then repeated myself, and then repeated myself again - this was in 2004, we were one of the first couples to get married in Mass. and then moved out of state two months afterward, so it was confusing for everyone involved. Anyway, eventually they decided that I should report single on my FAFSA, married on my PROFILE, provide Jen's income/tax information to them as a spouse, and then write a letter for my file explaining the discrepancy between the two forms. My first year they took away my small grant because of Jen's income (so I had to take out a loan to cover it), but after that year they gave it back to me and said that since I was the only person in the school in that situation, and likely the only one for some time to come, they didn't want to penalize me and would instead base my aid on my federal unmarried status.
I've had to do this in other situations too - for instance, when I applied for my federal security clearance, I had to report that I was single b/c it was a federal form, but I didn't want to be accused of lying to the agency or to the FBI background checkers if they later discovered that I was married in Mass. So I discussed the situation with the guy ushering my application through the process, and I ended up writing a note to file explaining that I was married to Jen, reporting all of the information required of a spouse on the background check application (including info about my in-laws, etc.), and explaining that I only reported myself as being unmarried b/c it's a federal form and my union is not recognized. I also had to jump through some hoops for my current federal job with that - they have a different background check procedure, I had to do extra paperwork to assure that she would be granted my life insurance payment if I die, etc. Fortunately she works for a private company and they have been great about modifying insurance plans, etc. to cover our situation!?
I hope in my lifetime I see all this crap finished. It is ridiculous for the government to legislate their version of morality. Sandy and I are not legally married and we are making other arrangements to make sure we are both covered for insurance and so forth. I try to look at the bright side of it that at least I have her, we have committed to each other and no government or bible-thumping zealots can tarnish our love or take it away. Oh and the really joyous part is HER DAD is one of the zealots. I just don't understand...
Anyway...we are enjoying our lives together and try not to get bogged down in stuff like this as it is so much negative energy! I know alot of you ARE legally married somewhere and I am happy you were afforded the ability to do so. Again, maybe in my lifetime I will see this stupidity come to an end and we can all just LIVE and LOVE without the judgemental crap!
Good luck!