By Any Means Necessary

Apparently this government thinks that it is so crucial to deny gays their civil rights that it is willing to deny straights their rights too:

Social Security Rejects Marriage Papers
By Associated Press
December 19, 2004, 7:40 PM EST

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. -- The Social Security Administration is rejecting marriage documents issued for heterosexual couples in four communities that performed weddings for gay couples earlier this year.

The agency is rejecting all marriage certificates issued in New Paltz, N.Y., after Feb. 27, when the town's mayor began marrying gay couples, according to town officials.

Certificates issued during the brief periods when Asbury Park, N.J., Multnomah County, Ore., and Sandoval County, N.M., recognized gay marriages are also being rejected.

Susie Kilpatrick, 30, of New Paltz, said the local Social Security office told her that no marriage documents issued after Feb. 27 could be used to establish identity because of the gay marriages that took place there earlier this year. About 125 heterosexual couples have been married since then.

Kilpatrick said her marriage certificate was rejected when she went to get a new card earlier this month so she could take her husband's name.

"What concerns me is that the certificate is the only way to prove that we're married," she told The New York Times for Sunday editions. "If something happens to us, or some other couple from New Paltz, we can't prove we're married. We would not be able to draw benefits."

The agency did not respond to repeated requests from the Times for comment. A call from The Associated Press for comment on Sunday was not immediately returned.

The agency posts rules on its Web site spelling out which documents can be used to obtain Social Security cards.

Full article here:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-gay-marriage-social-security,0,5144475.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

Relevant SS web page here:
http://policy.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0100203200
(Scroll down to subsection G.2.)

RM 00203.200 Evidence of Identity for an SSN Card

G. PROCEDURE-QUESTIONABLE MARRIAGE DOCUMENTS
Marriage documents exist for jurisdictions where the legality of such documents is still unresolved at the state level. The following outlines special procedure when handling questionable marriage documents issued by certain jurisdictions.

1. Marriage Documents Issued by San Francisco City and County

From February 12, 2004 through March 11, 2004, San Francisco City and County issued marriage certificates to same-sex couples and locally modified the marriage license applications and marriage certificates.
Due to the unresolved legal status of these locally modified same-sex marriage documents, do not accept same-sex marriage documents issued by San Francisco City and County during the specified time period.The locally modified form, which is in the form of a marriage document labeled “License and Certificate of Marriage”, refers to members of the same-sex couple as “1st Applicant” and “2nd Applicant.” Do not accept marriage documents issued by San Francisco City and County with the terminology “1st Applicant” and “2nd Applicant.”
NOTE: Marriage documents with “Groom” and “Bride”, and “Husband” and “Wife” that are issued to opposite-sex couples are acceptable documents for purposes of establishing evidence of identity as long as the document meets the criteria described in RM 00203.200 E.

2. Marriage Documents Issued by Other Jurisdictions

Do not accept any marriage documents as evidence of identity issued by the following jurisdictions during the respective timeframes, as follows:
Sandoval County, New Mexico, on 02/20/04;
New Paltz, New York, on or after 02/27/04;
Multnomah County, Oregon, on 03/03/04 through 04/20/04;
Asbury Park, New Jersey, on 03/08/04 through 03/10/04.
NOTE: Marriage records refer to marriages that are certified/recorded by the custodian of the record. Marriage documents refer to the means by which a marriage record is documented (i.e., marriage certificates and souvenir certificates are considered marriage documents.). Always follow the criteria in RM 00203.200 E.1 to determine if the identity document is acceptable evidence of identity.
Follow RM 00203.210A. for other types of documentation that are acceptable to support a name change.