Straight, but support gay marriage? You can't get married, either.

Remember in grade school when someone's pen or ruler would go missing, and the teacher would make everyone in class stay in from recess until the perpetrator 'fessed up? It was mass punishment, meant to incite the innocent to turn upon the guilty party and pressure them to cave in.

Now it appears that the federal government, speaking through the Metatron of the Social Security Administration, is engaging in mass punishment of people living in counties that don't subscribe to the dogma that same-sex marriage is harmful to the mortal souls of heterosexuals. Perhaps the feds believe that by unduly punishing heterosexuals for the "crimes" of the county that the heteros will rise up against their local government and pressure them to change their marriage policy.

Social Security Rejects Multnomah County Marriage Licenses

By Colin Fogarty

PORTLAND, OR 2004-12-20 The social security administration is not accepting marriage licenses issued by Multnomah County after March of this year.

As Colin Fogarty reports, the agency considers documents from heterosexual couples just as legally suspect as those from same-sex couples.

--------------------------

The federal Defense of Marriage Act already bars Social Security spousal benefits to same-sex couples.

What's in question now is when someone asks the Social Security Administration to sign off on a name change. Anyone doing that needs a legal document proving they are who they say they are.

The agency doesn't accept marriage licenses granted to gay couples in Multnomah County, San Francisco, New Paltz, New York and Asbury Park, New Jersey.

The agency also goes one step further, saying it won't accept any marriage documents issued in those places at the time gay couples were getting married.

That means heterosexual couples who got married at the same time could have trouble changing their names.

Social Security stresses, though, that it does accept other proof of ID, such as a driver's license.