Feds Deny Passport for Gay AIDS Volunteer  | News | Advocate.com

||  News  ||
03/22/08-03/24/08
Feds Deny Passport for Gay AIDS Volunteer

The U.S. State Department will not issue a new passport to an international AIDS educator under his married name, which is a hyphenate combining his and his partner's surnames, according to Massachusetts newspaper The Sun Chronicle. Jason Hair-Wynn married his partner in 2005 in his home state of Massachusetts, the only state that has legalized same-sex marriage. Hair-Wynn received a letter from the State Department saying the federal Defense of Marriage Act prohibits it from recognizing his new name. Under DOMA only heterosexual marriages are recognized by the federal government.

Hair-Wynn intended to go to Ghana this summer for AIDS education and volunteer work but needed to update his passport to reflect his married name. While he has successfully changed his name with the Registry of Motor Vehicles and the Social Security Administration, he hit a roadblock with the federal agency.

"When I got the letter, I said, 'I can't even process this. This is legal discrimination. It is weird to get discrimination in writing,'" he said to The Sun Chronicle. He intends to change his name back and reapply for a passport. (The Advocate)

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

Be the first to comment on this story.

Back to top

Submit a comment for this story:

*Type your comment here (Required, 1000 characters max.):

*Name (Required): 

*Hometown (Required): 

*E-mail address: (Required, but will not be displayed)

Is this comment for publication? 
Yes   No

Daytime phone number: (Required for print publication only and will not be displayed)

Please enter the words you see in the box, in order and separated by a space. Doing so helps prevent automated programs from abusing this service.

  

If you would like to submit a comment for posting, please fill out the form above. 

All comments submitted via this form are subject to posting or publication. (To send a private letter to an Advocate editor or writer, please use the e-mail button at the top of the page, or use snail mail.) If you would like your comment considered for publication in The Advocate magazine, please include your full name, your city of residence, and a phone number where you can be reached during business hours so that we can confirm your identity. Your e-mail address and telephone number are strictly confidential and will not be shared or used for any purpose other than to contact you about your comment.

Comments that do not concern specific articles in The Advocate or on Advocate.com will not be posted or published. See the Contact page for sending comments for reasons other than responding to Advocate editorial and news stories.

Please note that comments sent by fax or snail mail are unlikely to be posted, although they will be considered for publication along with all letters received via e-mail or via this Web page. Comments that chiefly concern Advocate.com content will be considered for posting only on the Web site. The Advocate reserves the right to edit submitted comments for grammar, spelling, obscenities, or libel; we will, however, do our best to preserve the original comment's style and intent. Comments considered for publication in The Advocate magazine may also be edited for length.