This week I talked with attorney Scott Squillace about his new book Whether to Wed: A Legal and Tax Guide for Gay and Lesbian Couples. After the Supreme Court's June 2013 decision to strike down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the floodgates opened for federal rights and benefits to flow to legally married gay and lesbian couples across the country. As we deal with our income taxes this year, Whether to Wed is a must-read for legally married gay and lesbian couples and those who are thinking about tying the knot. The book delves into the complex details that gay and lesbian couples, as well as their tax and estate planners, need to know.
I talked with Scott about why he decided that it was time to write and publish a book that answers many if not all questions that gay and lesbian couples might have before or after getting married, and about his spin on LGBT issues in general. When asked about his personal commitment to LGBT civil rights, he stated:
I've increasingly gotten involved in the marriage-equality movement. I lived and worked in Europe for the decade of the '90s and wasn't too terribly involved other than to write out a few checks. When I returned to the States around 2000, shortly thereafter I got introduced to GLAD in Boston and the case they had filed here in Massachusetts, and it was at an event for the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association that they honored the plaintiff couples, and they were introduced as, "These are the Rosa Parks of our generation and are the people first standing up and saying, 'It's not OK to discriminate against us.'" It really resonated with me, because I thought, "If people like me who are moderately well-educated and may have a voice in our community don't stand up and support this effort, we'll have nobody to blame but ourselves for being discriminated against." So that led me down the path to joining the initial board of MassEquality that was supporting the marriage equality movement in Massachusetts, and I've done a variety of other things. I'm very passionate about these issues. I'm a member of the Supreme Court Bar and attended the oral arguments on the big cases that were decided last year, and I follow it all very closely.
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Scott Squillace is a legacy advisor certified by the SunBridge Legacy Institute, a member of the Boston Foundation's Professional Advisors Committee, and co-chair of its Equality Fund: An Endowment for the LGBT Community. He also serves as a member of the board of directors for the Boston Estate Planning Council and is a member of the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association, Pride Planners, the Massachusetts Bar Association and the Boston Bar Association, where he currently co-chairs the Estate Planning Fundamentals Committee. Squillace lives in Boston with his husband.
For more information on the book, visit whether-to-wed.com.
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