Andy Harris: Wrong Again

As the Senate headed toward the witching hour (that is, tonight's midnight end of the 2008 session), they were again debating the bill to give domestic partners the same exemption as other family members get from the taxes associated with modifying the title of their home. Sen. Andy Harris was spouting his usual nonsense to block gays and lesbians from equality, and the basic factual premise of his argument against this bill was just plain wrong.

As he did when the Senate debated the bill a couple of weeks ago, Harris expressed concern about how easy it would be to pretend to be DPs just to avoid tax payments. According to Harris, all the other family relationships protected by the existing exemption are based on a public government document: a marriage license that is a matter of public record. Because DPs have no such public document (a problem, by the way, that persists because of people like Harris), it would be easy to fake the relationship just to get the tax exemption.

But Harris is wrong on that score. Although spouses and ex-spouses have family relationships that have such a publicly available document, the other family relationships do not. The only government documents to prove generational relationships (parental or grandparental) are birth certificates, which are not open to the public. How exactly would a grandparent and grandchild go about proving their relationship with marriage documents, as Harris claims they can?

Of course, were someone to point out that Harris is wrong, he would not change his mind on the issue. He is simply grasping for excuses to hurt innocent gay and lesbian people.

Fortunately, tonight Harris failed. The Senate passed the bill, and it is headed toward the governor's office for a signature. Kudos to House sponsor Ann Kaiser and Senate sponsor Rona Kramer for getting the bill passed this year.