Get ready my friends, for this one is a real asshole-clincher. Frank Mandelbaum, the founder of Intelli-Check, died in 2007 at the tender young age of 73. He left a $180,000 trust aside for his three grandkids, but stipulated this his son Robert’s children wouldn’t receive a red cent unless he was married to their mother. The tricky part is that Robert is already married to a man named Jonathan, and they have a child by a surrogate. So in order for Robert’s offspring to benefit from the trust, he has to marry a surrogate. Are you following?
First off, I believe that people should be free to do whatever they like with their own money, but I think that basing that decision on bigotry isn’t right. In the long run, forcing a gay man to marry a woman would be much more harmful to the child that stands to benefit, and create a fractured family dymanic. Money that could have been used to better a child’s life is being used to bribe someone into a legal contract. To me, nothing about this makes any sense.
In my mind, its better to walk away with integrity than to accept the dirty money of an obvious homophobe. When it comes to money, however everything is a gray area. I don’t know if I would be so high and mighty if we were talking millions, here.
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