Bethlehem widow argues same-sex marriage petition must continue in effort to change tax code

barbara baus

Barbara Baus, left, and Cathy Burgi-Rios walk together during a 2008 demonstration outside the Lehigh County Courthouse in Allentown. Burgi-Rios died last year.

(Express-Times File Photo)

A Bethlehem widow is fighting to maintain her petition to force Pennsylvania to retroactively recognize gay marriages even as state officials tried to wave the white flag.

Attorney Thomas Gohsler, representing the state Department of Revenue, filed a motion earlier this week asking Northampton County Judge Craig Dally to dismiss

' petition for an inheritance tax exemption. After a federal court ruling last month, the

, making Baus' petition moot, he said.

The state has already filed paperwork saying Baus will not have to pay a tax of approximately $10,600 for inheriting the estate of her late spouse, Catherine Burgi-Rios. Senior Judge Leonard Zito ordered Northampton County Court officials not to collect the tax until the petition was settled.

"We're struggling to see how there's an actual controversy before the court this time," Gohsler told Dally during a hearing Friday morning in Easton.

Baus' attorney, Benjamin Jerner, said the case still was not settled. The tax code in Pennsylvania specifically grants an exemption to husband and wives, which Baus argues discriminates against same-sex couples.

While Gohsler said the state has agreed to grant Baus the exemption and interpret the exemption as between spouses, Jerner argued there's nothing to hold the commonwealth to that interpretation down the road. The issue is also larger than just Baus, as countless other same-sex couples have no guarantee of how the department will interpret the code in the future, Jerner said.

"Ms. Baus could get married again and face this again. The department is under no obligation," Jerner argued.

Dally did not immediately make a ruling after hearing oral arguments.

Baus and Burgi-Rios lived together for 15 years before Burgi-Rios died of leukemia in 2012. They were married in Connecticut in 2011.

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