Here’s an idea that would be a natural progression in the logic by which the United States government denies gay people the right to marry and serve in the military: Introduce a Constitutional amendment that takes away the entitlement of homosexuals to vote.

If we’re not worthy of marriage and we’re not fit to translate languages or shoulder arms for our country, we certainly don’t qualify as first-class citizens—and we shouldn’t be allowed entry into a voting booth where real Americans determine the course of affairs for their genuinely red-blooded colleagues. I’m certain that this idea has crossed more than a few conservative minds, and there’s probably only one thing that gives them pause. If they take away our vote, gay men and lesbians would have even more reason to stop paying taxes. As it is, we are in a situation that many of our nation’s founders would likely describe as "taxation without representation"—or, certainly, taxation without equal protection.

According to the General Accounting Office, gay couples are denied 1,049 protections and incentives provided to straight partners in wedlock. It doesn’t matter that many of our gay relationships have lasted three, four, five decades or longer, while nearly half of heterosexual marriages end within their first 20 years. The federal government refuses to recognize us —except when a president who is desperate to shore up his failed administration goes on the stump to campaign for a Constitutional ban on legal gay relationships. Or when "liberal" federal legislators meekly defer on the matter, arguing that it should be left to the states—most of which (like Virginia) have been busy passing even more restrictive laws and amendments that make it even more difficult for us to legally protect our partnerships.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Revolutionary era battle cry of the patriots. And I decided to do a little math. The federal government collects around $750-billion in personal income taxes every year. Considering that gay folks make up approximately 10 per cent of the tax-paying population (many in higher income brackets), we are coughing up at least $75-billion a year—not including corporate, business or state and local income taxes. Why, that’s practically enough to allow Rummy to wage another war on a small East Asian nation.

The government clearly wants our money, even as it represses us. The IRS would not be amused if we took the approach of the early Colonists, and that agency has done a great job of striking fear into our hearts. But if millions of homosexuals actually did stop

contributing to the government’s coffers, the tax courts would be backed up for years and the Treasury Department would have to build thousands of new debtors’ prisons (with trendy discos and bistros) to handle the crowd of newly ordained criminals.

Though most of us don’t have the guts to get into trouble with the taxman, a few gay Americans do—and that number may be beginning to grow. Charles Merrill, a multi-millionaire whose cousin founded the Merrill Lynch investment firm, and his partner, Kevin Boyle, had enough chutzpah to tell the press earlier this year that they would no longer file income taxes to protest the country’s unfair treatment of gay couples. They suggested that other wealthy gay Americans consider following suit.

"I’m just doing the same thing that Mahatma Gandhi did in India and the colonists did during the War for Independence," the 71-year-old Merrill told The New York Post. "My partner and I believe marriage is when two people love each other regardless of their sexual organs. We’re paying first-class taxes to be treated like second-class citizens and we’re sick of it."

Merrill, whose paternal line stretches back to Nathaniel Merrill, an immigrant to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in 1620, says it truly is a matter of "taxation without representation."

But isn’t he afraid of the taxman? "If I was a young man with a 9-to-5 job, I wouldn’t be able to do this," Merrill told The Post. "But I’ve lived a long, wonderful life…What else have I got to do? A lot of people around me are starting to die, having not really done anything in their lives. I really want to try to make a difference while I’m still around."

To that end, Merrill and Boyle, who have been together more than two decades and live in North Carolina, have started an educational website: gaytaxes.org. Its purpose is not to launch an advocacy group but to provide gay people information about the issue. The site includes forms and letters regarding various ways to withdraw from the tax system, and includes a message board where you can offer opinions.

Although it may be a token effort, it is still a ballsy one—and from the number of messages the site is receiving, the idea may be catching on.

One of the best things about not paying all those taxes is that we would have more money to spend on our weddings. According to a Forbes magazine report, if gay marriages were made legal, it would represent a windfall for the wedding industry of $16.8 billion.

Of course, the industry wouldn’t realize all those profits right away because we wouldn’t all get married at once. But gay marriage, says the article, "would inject a sudden growth spurt into an industry whose expansion prospects are constrained by the limited growth in annual [heterosexual] marriages."

Forbes came up with its projection by looking at census figures for the straight population, in which roughly 92 percent of couples living together are married (at least as of year 2000). The magazine assumed that the same percentage of gay couples would likely tie a legal knot, and it used census estimates that 594,000 homosexual couples were living together in 2000.

The census figures represent only gay couples who chose to so identify themselves. We know that there are a lot more of us out there, which means the potential for even more gay weddings—and a lot less taxes collected if we collectively get ticked off enough to use the strength in our numbers.