Mae Flexer and the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence want to increase the tax on marriage with SB 1011, ostensibly to fund sexual assault and domestic violence prevention and services: https://www.cga.ct.gov/2017/TOB/s/2017SB-01011-R00-SB.htm

Public hearing on SB 1011 before the Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee is Friday, March 17 at noon in room 2E of LOB. Please send testimony opposing this anti-marriage bill to fintestimony@cga.ct.gov. Current testimony can be found here. Tell them marriage lowers rates of sexual assault and domestic violence (compared to cohabitation, or even more so, drunken hookups on college campuses) and should not be taxed. See this report from the Heritage Foundation for more information on marriage and rates of domestic violence:  http://www.heritage.org/…/marriage-still-the-safest-place-w…

And more inspiration for testimony . .  https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/10/the-best-way-to-end-violence-against-women-stop-taking-lovers-and-get-married/https://www2.gwu.edu/~ccps/rcq/rcq_negativeeffects_waite.html . . .

“Domestic Violence. A recent Census Bureau report speculated that perhaps so many children were being born to unmarried mothers because women were avoiding marriage out of fear of domestic violence and child abuse. Is this a reasonable fear? My own analysis of data from the 1987/88 National Survey of Families and Households shows that married people are about half as likely as cohabiting couples to say that arguments between them and their partner had become physical in the previous year (eight percent of married women compared to 16 percent of cohabiting women). When it comes to “hitting, shoving, and throwing things,” cohabiting couples are more than three times more likely than the married to say things get that far out of hand. One reason cohabitors are more violent is that they are, on average, younger and less educated. But even after controlling for education, race, age, and gender, people who live together are 1.8 times more likely to report violent arguments than married people.

It matters a great deal, however, whether cohabiting couples have definite plans to marry. Engaged cohabitors are no more likely to report violence than married couples, but cohabitors with no plans to marry are twice as likely to report couple violence as either married or engaged couples. Women in uncommitted cohabiting relationships seem to be especially at risk of violence directed toward them. The well-being of married and engaged cohabiting couples is substantially higher on this dimension than uncommitted cohabiting couples. Some researchers suggest that commitment to the relationship and to the partner reduces violence. These differentials seem to support that view.”