Outspoken American singer Melissa Etheridge says her home state of California can forget about pocketing her substantial tax payments, the “Bring Me Some Water” singer taking a stand after the controversial gay marriage amendment ‘Proposition 8’ failed to win support in the state.

Etheridge – who was planning to marry her long-term girlfriend, actress Tammy Lynn Michaels after the California Supreme Court allowed gay marriages to be legally recognised earlier this year – says that unless her state government give her the same rights as other citizens, she won’t play ball.

If the singer’s not “allowed the same right [to marry] under the state constitution as any other citizen. ... I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes, because I am not a full citizen,” she blogged on her website yesterday.  “There is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California.

After the court decision was opposed by community groups, California decided to allow the recent ballot measure, which was also supported by personalities such as Brad Pitt, Mary J. Blige, Ellen DeGeneres, and Sacha Baron Cohen. Now the over-turned amendment has left thousands of gay couples in doubt as to their futures.

“Gay people are born every day,” says the breast cancer survivor. “You will never legislate that away.”