Just a few things in the gay news this week that caught my eye...
You may have heard that a Gay Marriage bill was defeated in the New York State Senate (it had already been passed by the State Assembly). This was despite a Democrat majority in the senate, a total of 8 Democrats voted against along with all the Republicans. From what I read the debate preceding the vote left something to be desired, few of the nay voters felt any need to give and meaningful justification of their vote. However a number of Senators spoke in favour of the bill. Here is Senator Diane Savino.
A heterosexual man, Ted Cox, recently posed as a gay man in order to investigate ex-gay conversion therapy. Here is an interview with him describing what he saw.
Pink News carried the story of a 18-year-old who was jailed for trying to kill his, older, gay lover. While obviously its not something to laugh at, the story did contain the following..
Quote:Harding later returned to the property, in Workington, Cumbria, to stab Monan. The older man avoided injury because he was wearing a thick dressing gown.
What on earth was he trying to stab him with?
Fred
Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.
Senator Savino's speech is one of the best contributions I've seen in a debate in recent times. Thanks for posting that up, Fred. What an example of how to conduct discussion too. Can you imagine members of the House of Commons sitting so quietly through a speech?
fredv3b Wrote:With the greatest respect to Senator Savino's speaking style, in the House of Commons you need to hold peoples attention, she wouldn't last 5 minutes.
I daresay you are right, but I see that as more an indictment of our own system. :frown:
This article continues the theme in the same well-considered and articulately expressed way. In it, Erika Rzomp makes a statement that "Gay marriage is a civil rights issue and should not be up for a vote." Quoting from near the end of the article she states:
Quote:Ultimately as citizens of the United States, gays should be entitled to the same legal rights as everyone else; liberty and justice for all, right? Until you look at marriage. Any man and woman can enter into a legal agreement, a legal marriage, not even a bond of love consecrated by God in order to procreate, and automatically they are granted 1,138 more rights than a loving committed unmarried gay couple. The United States Government Accountability Office reviewed the Code of Federal Regulations and determined that there are 1,138 benefits, rights, and privileges contingent on marital status or where marital status is a factor. Wow. What makes it worse is that gay couples pay higher taxes. That's taxation without representation.
When I was single and a non-homeowner, a lot of this didn't matter to me. When life wasn't all about me anymore, I realized even though I was working, paying lots of taxes, and contributing to the community, the differences were about more than just making a public commitment. Basic rules for personal welfare were different for me. Here's what some of those 1,138 looked like: When I was fortunate enough to have an employer who provided domestic partner (DP) benefits, we had to sign an affidavit as proof of our relationship even though my partner and I had registered as DPs in Boulder, Colo., California, and were married in San Francisco. (Straight DPs do the same, but they have the marriage option). While I was thankful for her health benefits, their $6,000 annual value, a sizable sum, was treated as additional taxable income. Straight couples are not taxed on their benefits. Over the last two years I have been fighting a serious health condition and at one point thought I might die. Had that happened my partner probably would have lost her home. Not because she couldn't make the mortgage, but because she wouldn't have been able to pay the estate tax on the value of the half of the house she inherited from me. Straight couples don't worry about that. Fortunately, because we live in California, my partner was legally permitted to visit me in the hospital and she was eligible for paid family leave to care for me. Had this been a less progressive state, she would have had to bow to the wishes of my blood family and because Federal FMLA doesn't recognize our relationship she could have lost her job. This past year we have paid tens of thousands of dollars in out of pocket medical costs, none of which will be tax deductible. Why? Because we can't file jointly with a taxable household income (my partner's) and joint expenses.
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