Gay man denied passport because of marital name change

Good questions, Pam!

I wondered the same thing when I read the story a few days ago.  He wasn't asking for recognition of his marriage.  What if he'd changed his name to something completely different that didn't include his spouse's name--would he have been denied a visa?  I suspect so if they knew of his marriage.  That's how insane and oppressive the administration is, and DOMA, and shame on every Senator who voted for it.

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

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by: Lev Raphael @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 08:43:17 AM CDT

Since Real ID...

It's the kind of thing transgender people see every day. It used to be you could use the informal "common law" name change standard without goig to court to change your name -now you absolutely have to have a court order to have it recognised.

Since he's relying on his marriage (which they won't recognise) to change his name - as any married person would - they're denying it. They're going to make him spend the money (not insubstantial in some locales - it cost me $800 including fees & attorneys) to go through the legal name change process.

Another unrecognised financial benefit straight people have in marriage. Even when same sex couples have marriage rights in a state.

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by: Kathleen @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 09:07:27 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Or...

...what if he had changed his name to a hyphenated version if he was married to a woman?  I mean, the stupidity of this just boggles the mind.

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by: SuburbanHomo @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 09:08:10 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I think

I was agreeing with you.

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by: Kathleen @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 09:42:57 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yes

I saw your post right after I typed mine.  Such is the nature of those interwebs. ;-)

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by: SuburbanHomo @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 14:32:22 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Not up to Dept. of State

Obviously he has the local county Clerk of Court legal documentation making the new change.  The Registry of Motor Vehicles had no problem changing the name on his driver's license and the Social Security Administration changed his name on his Social Security card. But, the State Department was another matter.  How did the State Department know about his marriage and the reason for a change ?  It is none of their business, unless he told them.  I changed mine once to a Native American name, and no questions were asked when I got my passport.  Just showed them my legal papers authorizing the change.

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by: Dunkindonuts @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 10:54:28 AM CDT

He must have sent the marriage license

Along with the official papers authorizing the name change.

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by: Dunkindonuts @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 11:00:04 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

That's exactly it.

Most str8 people just do the name change by checking a box (or similar) on the marriage license. Since DOMA (thanks Clintons!) prevents the State Dept. from being able to recognize a MA marriage license for a same sex couple the poor bureaucrat in processing had no choice but to reject it. All the guy has to do is go to court and have it change and then resubmit with "acceptable" proof. While this is an outrage it's not like he can't get a passport at all.  

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by: vanitysmurf @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 11:50:45 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

But he does have to stand on his head...

and pay extra time and money for something opposite orientation marrieds don't have to do.  
It's true, it's not like he can't get a passport...he just has to pay and go to court to legally change it...so much for being married and having that option.
What I want to know, is how did he get a name change on his Social Security records!!!???  That's way cool bec that is a federal thing too and seems like he could have just as easily been give the shift for that.

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by: Karen in Kalifornia @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 15:57:41 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I recently had a problem

I too had a problem recently, and it was a bit embarassing.  I applied for a passport for my adopted son.  On his birth certificate, I am listed as the only parent.  The passport agent saw me across the room, with my son, and asked if I had the Mother's consent.  I said, "No, it wasn't necessary".  He yelled at me in front of a group of people, "You have to have the mother's consent to apply for a passport."  I walked over and explained the situation, but he continued to be rude to me.  After he called me into the office, he complained about my son's picture not being a good shot.  

Then, the passport application was forwarded to INS in Charleston SC.  They wrote me back and said they wouldn't accept his NJ birth certificate, with me listed as the only parent.  They wanted a translated copy of his foreign "adoption decree".  I replied, "A NJ state certified birth certificate isn't enough?"  Apparently not.  But I refused to give them a translated adoption decree.  In my opinion, it was none of their business.  I had already complied with all foreign and domestic laws to adopt my son and somewhere the government already has a copy of the decree.  Anyway, we settled upon my providing the office with the original US Certificate of Citizenship, which I had framed in my home.  I had initially given them a copy, but that wasn't good enough.  I feared the original certificate would get lost or destroyed.  I got his passport and Certificate of Citizenship (returned) last week.  But I found the experience, particularly the part in the passport office, quite humiliating.

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by: SteveinNJ @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 11:10:10 AM CDT

This is the kind of thing

that you call your Congress Critter's staff to help deal with. They all have constituent services people whose purpose is to help you deal with such things and they are usually quite competent. I've known several people with other passport issues that have found their intervention to bring very swift resolution.

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by: vanitysmurf @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 11:40:15 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Good bye American dream

What has happened to our once Great Nation?

*walks off crying*

Besser ein ende mit Schrecken als ein Schrecken ohne ende

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by: becca @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 11:23:52 AM CDT

Maybe we just lucked out

We drove to Winnipeg to get married....in December of all times!  Anyway, the Canadian border agents were friendly and polite.  They wanted to know why we were going to Canada with my children in tow and we told them that we were going to get married.  They congratulated us.

Coming back to the US, in North Dakota, the US border agent, who had a hispanic name, asked us what we were doing in Canada.  Again we told them that we had gotten married.  After doing a disclaimer that what he was about to say was not the official US Gov't position, he congratulated us as well and gave us his best wishes.

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by: Xwards @ Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 04:50:55 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Cruel but not unusual

In effect he was being punished for being gay and married in a jurisdiction where it was legal.  Since his married state has nothing to do with where he was going or applying for a passport, this was clearly arbitrary and homophobic.  Where do State Department regulations about passports say that gay people who have changed their names can't apply? It's scary to live in a country so mean-spirited.  And one that makes you afraid. When we went to Stratford, Ontario to get married, at the border I simply said I was going there to see family at Thanksgiving (which was true enough).  We both had decided that if we said we were going to get married, we might be hassled in some way.  And on the return, we didn't mention the wedding as our reason for being in Canada.  If I were twenty years younger, I'd be sorely tempted to move to Canada. The irony is that my parents survived the Holocaust and came to American for freedom and I've watched our freedoms here diminish year by years since the Bush regime began.

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

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by: Lev Raphael @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 11:53:48 AM CDT

The Federal Government Goes Out Of Its Way To Make Life Difficult For Gay Famillies

My husband and I are also legally married in Canada. We also have 2 children whom we each have legally adopted. We go to Canada at least once a year. Last year, coming back from Vancouver, as we got to the U.S custom desk, all four of us stepped up together with our (considerable) luggage. (I was also in a cast, having broken my arm in Vancouver). Before we got to the desk, the U.S clerk asked my husband and I "why are you both stepping up?" He answered that we were each with our two kids and travelling together as a family and, besides, we are legally married in Canada. The agent, in front of our kids, said "well you aint legally married and you aren't a family here. I'll overlook it this time but don't let it happen again." I did complain to my (Republican) Congressman and also complained to Customs. After months of "investigation" we got a letter saying in essence,  that we had insisted on completing a single customs form and that the agent, while perhaps not politic, acted properly. This was untrue. His rant began before we ever handed him any forms. But it also raised another question. The customs form asks "how many family members are traveling with you?" Since we each have two kids, how many family members do we each travel with? And since we are obviously family to each other, why do we have to misrepresent our status to get into our own country? In telling this story to others, I have repeatedly had straight, unmarried couples tell me they fill out single customs forms and step up together all the time with no questions asked. No surprise.
As to Jason Hair-Wynn's story the State Department has no say in what a person's name is and no right to deny him the ability to travel or to otherwise hold necessary citizenship papers because they don't like how he got his name.  

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by: David Goroff @ Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 14:01:57 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Gay Man Denited Passport

Although he shouldn't have to do this, he can still legally change his name to anything he wants it to be (as long as he is not intending to defraud anyone) and he can have a passport, driver license, etc., that will reflect the new name. I realize it's a bit of a hassle, but with the powers that be, did he really expect anything different?

Jim in PortlandOregon

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by: jiminportlandoregon @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 12:37:30 PM CDT

DOMA

The result is wrong.  DOMA is a bad law.  But I think the State Department is right.  This is not a run-of-the-mill legal name change where there is a court order changing the name, like in an adoption or a divorce.  The name change was done via marriage certificate...  a marriage certificate that the State Department is bound by federal law to ignore.  While the case illustrates the silliness of DOMA and its overly strict limitations on the recognition of marriages, they are following the law it appears.

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by: tony2 @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 13:58:21 PM CDT

The choices available to Jason

The State Department letter states that Hair-Wynn could receive a valid passport reflecting his name change if he can provide a certified copy of the court order documenting the change or if he can provide documentation proving "customary use" of his married name - meaning that he has lived under the name for at least a period of five years. Neither of those options is available to Hair-Wynn; he has only been married since November 2005 and because he initiated his name change on his marriage license application - a routine process for heterosexual couples - as opposed to the probate court, there is no court order documenting the change. If Hair-Wynn decides to make his name change legal through the probate court, it will come at a cost of about $135, said Granda. He's already out the $75 fee required to apply for his rejected passport.

Short of repealing DOMA, the only other hope for a long-term solution to inconsistencies in local and federal marriage law is legislation currently pending on Beacon Hill to permit same-sex couples to substitute their marriage licenses for the other types of records that the passport agency will recognize to verify a legal name change.

http://www.edgeboston.com/inde...

According to the article, at GLAD has gotten 50 calls about situations similar to Jason's.

If you want allies, you have to be an ally.

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by: dale @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 20:46:34 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

And Minolta revokes partner medical coverage

after they transferred an emplyee to Idaho

His life partner Ralph Martinelli was a district sales manager for Konica Minolta, based in New Jersey, and Ryan was covered as a domestic partner under the company's health plan.

But that coverage came to an end after Martinelli was transferred last year to Konica Minolta's Idaho operation.

Konica Minolta (KMBS) says it only offers insurance to domestic partners or legally married same-sex partners in states where those relationships are registered.

Martinelli and Ryan have been registered domestic partners in New Jersey since 2005, and KMBS allowed Martinelli to cover Ryan when the couple lived in New Jersey.

Idaho has no such registry.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon0...

And just a note on Hillary - she says that she wants to change PART of DOMA, so that the federal government would recognize Hair_Wynn's marriage and issue the passport, but she SUPPORTS this discrimination in DOMA and would uphold the right of Idaho to discriminate against couples from New Jersey

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by: tiponeill @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 14:51:54 PM CDT

Why we need marriage

That is an excellent, albeit sad, example of why we need Marriage Equality and why we need it NOW!

Clearly "Civil Unions" (whatever the Hell they are) do not work because they not recognized in the entire United States.

Besser ein ende mit Schrecken als ein Schrecken ohne ende

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by: becca @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 15:42:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

tip, that is a perfect example...

...of what bull**t that leave it to the states line of reasoning is...( not to mention "leave it to the states" means total collusion and condoning discriminating against gay citizens.  Sucks.

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by: Karen in Kalifornia @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 16:04:21 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Another angle...

It's been so long since I've had a course in constitutional law, so perhaps this is inaccurate... but I suddenly had a foggy recollection of the privileges and immunities clause of the federal Constitution.  Again, I'm not totally sure here, and this is not to be taken as any kind of formal legal advice, but some thoughts did cross my mind.

The P&I clause was once a major source of constitutional arguments for aggrieved individuals, before equal-protection jurisprudence stole its thunder... but as I recall, the right to travel is still protected federally under P&I.  There have been P&I cases involving welfare recipients who moved from one state to another, and upon applying for benefits in the new state, were informed of durational residency requirements (e.g. inability to receive full, or any, welfare benefits until they had lived in the state for 120 days, a year, etc.)  These recipients have largely prevailed, on the constitutional theory that the residency requirements burdened the exercise of their fundamental right to travel.

I think the fact situation faced by Hair-Wynn parallels that of the welfare recipients in at least some respects.  Both the welfare recipients and Hair-Wynn possessed legal rights in their home states (welfare: entitlement, meaning that all applicants who meet the statutory qualifications have a right to receive it; Hair-Wynn: the various rights that attached to his Massachusetts marriage), which are not being recognized by another governmental entity, and which nonrecognition burdens the fundamental P&I right to travel.  The closer the facts, the better the argument that the State Department's treatment of Hair-Wynn is unconstitutional under existing precedent...

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by: CubPaws2008 @ Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 17:59:20 PM CDT

Not just America

I wish I could say I was surprised. In Australia, it's possible to be denied a passport if you are a transsexual who hasn't divorced your partner. I managed not to get hit by this as the policy was literally enacted within days of me getting my passport. But the policy amounts to the fact that if one department of the government saw you as married to a woman, and you wanted a passport with an F on it, they refuse on the basis that it would be indirect government acceptance of a homosexual marriage, which is illegal. :(

A friend of mine got bitten by this. :/ Australia will also no longer give temporary, 1-year passports with a revised gender to fly internationally for SRS; I was one of the last to get one, apparently. :/

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by: mistwolf @ Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 06:29:24 AM CDT