Why marriage equality is important

This article talks about how same-sex couples are hit harder by federal taxes then their heterosexual counterparts because they cannot file jointly (Ray and I are witnessing this first hand right now, and it would have really saved us a lot if we could have filed jointly at the federal level), given that they're barred from getting legally married.

Marriages performed in Massachusetts, civil unions or any other kind of domestic partnership set up at the state level has no value whatsoever at the federal level.

The article is interesting overall, but this excerpt at the end offers yet another good reason why we should be extended the privileges of marriage:

Last year, the National Sexuality Resource Center released a new study showing widespread psychological and social harm inflicted on same-sex couples because they are denied the right to marry.

The co-authors, Gilbert Herdt, PhD, anthropologist, and director of the National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University, and Robert Kertzner, MD, practicing psychiatrist, and Adjunct Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University, found that on average, married individuals have better mental health, more emotional support, less psychological distress, and lower rates of psychiatric disorder than the unmarried.