Tomorrow is Tax Day, and NOM's Thomas Peters was interviewed by the Iowa Gazette over how some gay marriage activists are using the tax code to attack DOMA:

"...The 2010 census counted more than 131,000 same-sex married couple households in the United States. The gay-rights organization One Iowa puts this state’s figure at about 4,500 marriages since same-sex marriage became legal in April 2009.

“Tax time brings into clear focus the additional burdens that one set of married couples, gay couples, have to face that other couples don’t,” Cole-Schwartz said.

Thomas Peters, cultural director for the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, said what is unfair is Iowa residents not getting a chance to vote on same-sex marriage. The tax issue is part of that larger debate, he said.

“If we want to simplify the tax code, let’s allow the democratic process to work out over the underlying debate about what marriage is,” he said.

The Iowa House last year passed legislation calling for a statewide vote on constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said he will not bring the measure to a vote and believes passing such an amendment would put discrimination in the Iowa Constitution.

The Internal Revenue Service says it is bound by the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman in federal law.

... Some couples have defied the law and filed joint federal returns. The “Refuse to Lie” campaign offers advice such as filing two individual returns and adding a joint return or including an attachment saying they’re married.

... The National Organization for Marriage’s Peters said gay-rights activists are trying to create a “legal mess” to “push an agenda to offer a false solution.”

The IRS said all taxpayers are expected to file complete and accurate returns, and one element for determining a penalty is whether an error was intentional."