Though the U.S. Supreme Court has declined without comment to review a request to overturn the Massachusetts Judicial Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage, the issue raises an important irony that no true tax-hating American, much less a tax-loathing libertarian, can ignore. The irony, one that gay people have been silent about for too long, is that gay taxpayers are experiencing taxation without representation. If any straight conservative were experiencing this problem that gay people have long endured, Washington would be bristling with rakes and torches.

Gay married couples in Massachusetts, unlike straight couples, cannot wave their gay marriage papers at the federal government in order to get a host of benefits granted to straight married couples, because the government doesn’t recognize their unions as marriages under federal law. To be sure, gay couples can’t file their taxes jointly, and perhaps they may not want to, given that the so-called “marriage penalty" can be steep, especially for two-income couples where both incomes are fairly equal. When both incomes are combined, many couples are pushed into the next tax bracket, triggering higher taxes.

But even so, gay couples that don’t have equal incomes still can’t file jointly and consolidate their deductions in order to lower their taxes. And moreover, unlike straight couples, gay married couples, and all gay couples for that matter, cannot automatically receive their deceased spouse's Social Security “survivor benefits”, despite paying into the system for years. Same goes for military pensions. And unlike straight couples, gay married couples cannot automatically inherit each other's estates estate-tax-free.

While married straight people can inherit unlimited assets from their spouses without triggering federal estate taxes, if one gay partner dies, the other could pay estate taxes of up to 48% on estates that exceed $1.5 million—even on a home that was jointly owned. And since the majority of state inheritance laws do not recognize gay partners, a deceased gay partner's assets routinely go to family members, even if they've been estranged for years. And, unlike married straight couples who can give each other any amount tax-free while they are alive, gay married couples can only give each other up to $11,000 “gift-tax-free” every year, an amount capped at a total of $1 million in gifts over a lifetime (and any portion of that $1 million that’s gifted while living has to count against the $1.5 million estate tax exemption). Moreover, gay couples still cannot wave their marital papers at the government to force their employer to give them spousal health benefits. And gay couples who have shared a home for years can be barred from sharing a room in a nursing home.

So why is it moral and just that gay taxpayers—including gay soldiers fighting for freedom around the world—pay taxes into a government system that denies them not only their right to have their relationship recognized as a marriage before the government, but all the attendant government benefits therein? Since when is it conservative—a group that has gone hoarse with rhetorical swollen glands in their seething hatred of all things involving taxation, who are right when they say the government is just one big alimentary canal with a big appetite on one end and no responsibility on the other --when is it conservative to let the government unfairly tax hard-working citizens in this manner?

No wonder gay people feel like they’re shouting into a field of cotton—it’s because gay people once and for all need to refocus the fight on the issue of taxation. As the debate unfolds, it’s worth doing a recap of what’s at issue. Someone once said that an explanation is where the mind comes to rest. Watch how that comes into play in the gay marriage fight—you’ll see that the anti-gay marriage arguments are unconnected by anything except a tissue of anti-gay rhetoric. For example, when the argument is raised that the sanctity of marriage needs to be protected, that begs the question: Where are the divorce cases showing the straight marriages that have been dissolved because two gay people got married? Why isn’t there a constitutional amendment outlawing adultery, a far bigger threat to straight marriage? And why is it that the government, theoretically, allows a marriage between two mass murdering serial killers and not two taxpaying, loving citizens who merely happen to be of the same sex?

Furthermore, the Massachusetts court didn’t abrogate any church’s First Amendment right by demanding that churches start performing gay religious marriages. It actually said that "no religious ceremony has ever been required to validate a Massachusetts marriage,” a classic separation of church and state. Another side of this debate tries to right-size itself by seizing upon Biblical texts as flotation devices, that the Bible prohibits homosexual behavior. But as the Bible was written at a time before the sciences of genetics, anthropology, and biology, contradictions abound here. For example, while the Bible outlaws celibacy and exogamy (marriage with non-Jews), it permitted behaviors that we today condemn, such as prostitution, polygamy, concubinage and the treatment of women as property. And while the Old Testament accepted divorce, Jesus forbade it, though it’s government-accepted practice today.

Also, Lev. 25:44 states that people may possess slaves, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. So does that mean Americans can get Mexicans as slaves, but not, say, Cubans? And Exodus 35:2 clearly says that anyone who works on the Sabbath should be put to death, so are people morally obligated to kill their next-door neighbors for mowing their lawns on Sunday? (Well, maybe if they do it before 10 a.m.). Also, Lev. 21:20 states that people may not approach the altar of God if they have a “defect” in their sight, so Grandma, please stay home from church or ditch the reading glasses. Lev. 19:27 prohibits men from trimming the hair around their temples, thus outlawing most members of government, and Lev. 11:6-8 says that touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, thus outlawing the NFL. And those who wear garments made of two different kinds of thread are in violation of Lev. 19:19, so cancel Fashion Week in Manhattan. And anyone who says the F-word, like Dick Cheney or most Democrats, however justified, must be stoned to death, according to Lev.24:10-16.

Another argument put forth is that a constitutional amendment is in response to activist judges, a valid point. But isn’t it true that the rights of many marginalized groups, from African Americans to women to immigrants, have been guaranteed only through the courts? Aren’t the courts supposed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority? Couldn’t it be said that, if this country had left it to the states to decide, we’d still be living in a country that would have rampant legal segregation? Isn’t it true that a democracy is only as strong as the weakest it protects?

Isn’t it true that two gay people who get married, who promise to be accountable to and responsible for each other in a stable, loving, tax-paying, lifelong marriage, the very kind of relationship that underpin a stable society, are making one of the most conservative choices of all?

Since when is it conservative to let the US Constitution, which was designed to protect and ensure equal treatment for all Americans, be used instead for an unwarranted government intrusion into the private choices made by a taxpaying couple? Since when is it conservative to let the US Constitution be used to marginalize and financially burden part of the American family?