Posted on 01/21/2016 11:48:49 AM PST by wagglebee
TAMPA, Florida, January 21, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Is the procreative impossibility of homosexual activity the same as heterosexuals being biologically infertile?
Stetson University law professor Joseph Morrissey is suing for a tax deduction of $36,538 for in vitro fertilization treatments and the cost of a surrogate to carry twin boys for himself and his male partner.
In denying Morrissey's claim, the IRS explained that for tax deductions, the medical services must be provided to the taxpayer, his spouse, or his dependent. Therefore, a surrogate does not qualify, and neither does IVF for someone other than the filer, his spouse, or his dependent.
What Morrissey is focusing on, however, is the words of the IRS agent who turned down his IVF tax deduction. The IRS agent noted that Morrissey's sexual orientation is a "choice."
Morrissey's lawsuit states, "Despite the IRS's backward and archaic thinking, plaintiff is not homosexual by 'choice.'" Morrissey claims that the procedures "took nearly four years, seven IVF procedures, three surrogates, three egg donors, two clinics and more than $100,000."
LGBTQ activists are trying to get a legal ruling that homosexuality is genetic, innate, natural, and not a choice. Catherine Sakimura, deputy director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, stated, "A gay male couple cannot conceive a child without the assistance of a woman." Therefore, according to Sakimura, two men going outside their homosexual relationship to contract a womb "should be treated the same, in terms of infertility."
Significantly, Morrissey says gay men are "effectively" infertile. His lawsuit claims that he "cannot engage in heterosexual intercourse to conceive children, and cannot do that with his chosen life partner," because doing so would require him "to violate his monogamous relationship and marriage [sic] engagement."
Sakimura argues that the government gives tax deductions to heterosexual couples that can't conceive children, thus it is unconstitutionally discriminatory to deny the same benefit to homosexuals.
Tessa Davis, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, says the tax code should be changed to allow deductions for surrogacy "if the couple can demonstrate medical infertility." Davis argues that, "like a kidney donor, the surrogate provides a substitute for normal functioning of the reproductive systems of the couple."
Davis told The Tampa Tribune that Morrissey's lawsuit makes the unique legal argument that being homosexual is the same as being medically infertile. She describes the issue as follows: "Look, I may not be infertile as defined by your standards historically, or even as defined by medical textbooks, but the bare reality is that I can't have a child without some type of costs that derive from the opposite gender."
"It is indeed tragic for the state to treat homosexual couples like infertile heterosexual couples," Americans for Truth's Peter LaBarbera told LifeSiteNews. "The latter create a family, with a mother and a father, like all other natural families the world over – whereas homosexual couples create unnatural, experimental families, that are motherless or fatherless by design."
LaBarbera continued, "Homosexual-led households model immoral same-sex behavior to an innocent child, which itself is wrong and certainly not in the child's best interests."
Morrissey's partner became a Pinellas County middle school mathematics teacher after Morrissey began teaching at Stetson in 2004. The two initially considered adopting a child, but at the time it was still illegal in Florida for gays to adopt. The Florida homosexual adoption ban was ruled unconstitutional in 2010.
After July's Supreme Court's Obergefell decision, the two men announced their intention to call their relationship a marriage.
I'm sure there is nothing creepy about that. What could go wrong?
I see the surrogate is carrying twin boys. I wonder if there was any embryo sex selection at work.
‘US government hates homos. Claims fagdom a choice! News at eleven.’
Next up, single person:
“I am asexual and cannot conceive a child myself. I need a tax break for a surrogate mother”
I don’t see a reason for anybody to get a tax deduction for IVF.
***LGBTQ activists are trying to get a legal ruling that homosexuality is genetic, innate, natural, and not a choice. ***
If a gay gene is ever found, I might agree with them. Not holding my breath though.
The gays should at least have to prove they’ve been trying to conceive, but haven’t been able to. Maybe their doctor could certify that they are infertile. Then our tax payers can pay for their surrogates.
The issue is simply that the medical payments were not for the care of the taxpayer or his family. Payments for surrogacy would not be allowable if the parents-of-record were a married heterosexual couple.
However, if a woman provided surrogacy services, any medical payments she made herself would be deductible, subject to the general limits on deductibility of medical payments, while any payment she received for the service would be taxable as income.
Perhaps Congress will attempt to enact a deduction for some or all of payments related to surrogacy. If so, they’d have to include all cases to get any backing.
Not likely, given the number of cases of identical twins where one is gay and the other straight.
What you describe is the situation regarding health insurance in California. The fact that the same-sex couple has not conceived a child after six months of “trying” “proves” they are “infertile.” Then their artificial reproduction interventions must be covered by insurance.
Just for fun, we should send someone in with a report that they ARE fertile after all. See the reaction on the bureaucrat's face. "Lawd, it's a miracle!"
There are simple medical tests to demonstrate objective male or female fertility, but I’m sure those wouldn’t be allowed.
Sarcasm, satire, and parody are almost useless these days, now that we all live in an open-air insane asylum.
Oh, believe me, I agree. I don’t think they’ll ever find a gay gene. I think it’s an impossibility. Plus, if a gay gene were ever found, then you would hear the cries about making selective abortions illegal from the LGBT community faster than a NY minute.
Well, if you wait for government to hand you rights instead of having a gun to claim them,this is what you get.
I don’t think you’re going out on a limb there. That sounds like it would have been the subject of Quatrain #1 by Nostradamus. LOL.
You mean the homosexuals are screaming about something that’s not tax deductible for heterosexual couples?
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Their claim seems to be that it *should be* deductible, under the same rules as IVF services for a heterosexual married couple (or single woman), because homosexuals cannot “have children” any other way.
As I said, it could be made deductible if Congress amended the Internal Revenue Code.
Yes, finally! And apparently this so called couple also does, in that they know it is not marriage when two people of the same sex live together. As one of them said “the two men announced their intention to call their relationship a marriage.”
Not that they decided (however fake it may be) to get married, just that they decided to “call their relationship a marriage”
I met her in a club down in old Soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry-cola
See-oh-el-aye cola
She walked up to me and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said Lola
El-oh-el-aye Lola la-la-la-la Lola
Well I’m not the world’s most physical guy
But when she squeezed me tight she nearly broke my spine
Oh my Lola la-la-la-la Lola
Well I’m not dumb but I can’t understand
Why she walked like a woman and talked like a man
Oh my Lola la-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la Lola
Well we drank champagne and danced all night
Under electric candlelight
snip
Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man
But I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man
And so is Lola
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