By now we all know what Obama said about us in his acceptance speech, but here it is in total:
I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in a hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.
Now I can't criticize the "live lives free of discrimination" part...amen to that. But as for hospital visitation, don't all hospital patients deserve visits from the people they love?? Don't all gay people deserve this...and isn't marriage a completely different issue?? By putting these two concepts in the same sentence, Obama has fallen into the rhetorical morass created by the marriage equality movement.
The rhetoric goes roughly like this...A lesbian is denied the ability to see her hospitalized partner; spouses are allowed to visit each other in the hospital; therefore lesbian (and gay) couples must be allowed to marry so they can visit each other in the hospital. So then Obama steps into this conversation, saying that we can't agree on marriage but we can agree that couples who can't marry should still be able to visit each other in the hospital.
But try this. Hospital accreditation standards include those who play a significant role in a patient's life, even if not legally related, within the definition of family. Neither gay nor straight couples should have to marry to visit each other in the hospital. Gay people without partners need assurance that those they love and consider family will be allowed to visit them in the hospital. Consider that LGBT people may be more likely than heterosexuals to move away from unsupportive families of origin and/or to more accepting cities or towns.
If we make any discussion of hospital visitation policies about same-sex couples, we are going to miss the vast numbers of unpartnered LGBT people who don't want their estranged parents given hospital access while their closest friends are kept out or who don't want to be left all alone because their families of origin live at a great distance and their families are choice are excluded.
In 2007, Virginia passed a law that requires hospitals to allow patients to choose their visitors. Gay and straight; coupled and not. That's the law Obama should support...along with a federal advance health care directive registry. He should also support LGBT equality..including in access to marriage...but not in the same sentence.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
LESBIANS ENTITLED TO FERTILITY TREATMENT...BUT UNMARRIED WOMEN?
As I wrote in May, doctors in California hoped to escape liability for refusing to provide fertility treatment to Lupita Benitez by arguing that her unmarried status, rather than her sexual orientation, led to their denial. They also argued that they had a religious objection to treating her and that this was protected by the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom. This week, the California Supreme Court issued its opinion.
The Court ruled unanimously that the doctors could not claim a First Amendment basis for denying fertility treatment to lesbians. State law made clear that businesses could not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and the doctors were required to comply with that law. So far, so good. But at the time the denial of treatment took place, discrimination on the basis of marital status was not banned in California. So the court's ruling says that the doctors can still defend the Benitez lawsuit by arguing as a factual matter that they denied her treatment because she was single, not because she was a lesbian.
When asked whether she would treat a married lesbian, one of the defendant doctors said, "I don't know." But that's the wrong question, isn't it? Marital status shouldn't determined who has access to fertility treatment. That's the law now in California and should be the law everywhere.
The Court ruled unanimously that the doctors could not claim a First Amendment basis for denying fertility treatment to lesbians. State law made clear that businesses could not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and the doctors were required to comply with that law. So far, so good. But at the time the denial of treatment took place, discrimination on the basis of marital status was not banned in California. So the court's ruling says that the doctors can still defend the Benitez lawsuit by arguing as a factual matter that they denied her treatment because she was single, not because she was a lesbian.
When asked whether she would treat a married lesbian, one of the defendant doctors said, "I don't know." But that's the wrong question, isn't it? Marital status shouldn't determined who has access to fertility treatment. That's the law now in California and should be the law everywhere.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
AN ARKANSAS INITIATIVE THAT MUST BE DEFEATED!
After a hiatus for my summer vacation, I'm back...and with some urgent news. Arkansas voters will have an initiative on their November ballot that, if it passes, will ban all unmarried couples from adopting children or becoming foster parents. That's right. An unmarried heterosexual couple will have to marry, and a same-sex couple will be completely boxed out. (The initiative makes clear that only marriages recognized in Arkansas -- those between one man and one woman -- count). Also, as the words of the initiative make clear, a person will be unable to adopt or foster a child as an individual if he or she is living with an unmarried partner of any sex! This initiative is based on the right-wing marriage movement ideology that blames all our social problems on the decline of life-long heterosexual marriage...ideology I critique in my book.
The coalition fighting this needs your help now! Please get involved with Arkansas Families First.
The coalition fighting this needs your help now! Please get involved with Arkansas Families First.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
PROVINCETOWN, NOT PALM SPRINGS
If you want to get married before the November election, plan to do so in Massachusetts. The legislature has repealed the law that effectively banned out-of-state couples from marrying there, and Governor Patrick will sign the repeal shortly.
Because Californians are voting up or down in November on retaining marriage for same-sex couples, any marriage there carries a risk. If a ban on same-sex marriage passes, all the marriages performed before then will be under a cloud.
On the other hand, the skies are clear in Massachusetts. Thanks to the fine work of Mass Equality and a lot of straight allies, marriage for same-sex couples is secure there. So choose the Berkshires, not Berkeley, and breathe easy.
Because Californians are voting up or down in November on retaining marriage for same-sex couples, any marriage there carries a risk. If a ban on same-sex marriage passes, all the marriages performed before then will be under a cloud.
On the other hand, the skies are clear in Massachusetts. Thanks to the fine work of Mass Equality and a lot of straight allies, marriage for same-sex couples is secure there. So choose the Berkshires, not Berkeley, and breathe easy.
Monday, July 28, 2008
OHIO PAID SICK LEAVE CONTINUED
I posted a couple of weeks ago about the narrow definition of family member in the Ohio Paid Sick Days initiative. Since then, I've spoken with the initiative's campaign manager, Brian Dunn, and looked into the role of Equality Ohio and other gay rights groups.
What I have to report is both sad and infuriating.
Ohio has a Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that bars marriage and recognition of marriage for same-sex couples but also says the state “shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effect of marriage.” Perhaps Ohio could not mandate paid sick leave that employees could use to care for a sick unmarried partner. That doesn't really create a "legal status," but someone could argue that it does.
But, as my earlier post pointed out, there are at least two good alternative options: include anyone who is a member of the employee's household or include the definition that federal workers now have -- anyone related by blood or affinity whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. The latter definition is in Senator's Kennedy's Healthy Families Act.
Brian Dunn told me that Ohioans for Healthy Families, a coalition spearheaded by SIEU, consulted with their lawyers and was told that a more inclusive definition would not be possible given the state DOMA. This is just dead wrong. Workers have households containing a variety of individuals; allowing a worker to balance work and family responsibilities by using sick leave to care for a sick household member would not be "recognizing a legal status" between the worker and the sick household member that "approximated marriage."
Sure, one of the right-wing groups that pushed for the Ohio DOMA might challenge the law. They would lose. Last year the Ohio Supreme Court ruled, 6-1, that the state could prosecute a man for violence against a woman he lived with "as a spouse" without running afoual of the state DOMA. In the lead-up to the case, one of the strongest proponents of Ohio's DOMA said it would not violate DOMA to make domestic violence against any household member a crime.
So now we know where Ohioans for Healthy Families was coming from. I blame both bad legal advice and what I imagine to be an inability to tolerate even the slightest chance that a right-wing maniac would challenge the law. Proponents of the initiative decided it was better to sacrifice the variety of households, including those in which many same-sex couples live. I repeat what I said in my earlier post. Shame on them.
Now as for the gay rights groups, they were not asleep at the wheel. The gay community knew the campaign excluded them, and Equality Ohio voted to oppose the measure. I have since heard that Equality Ohio voted to remain neutral on the initiative, but I have been unable to confirm this. The Human Rights Campaign was involved as well, and dealt directly with SIEU. They did supply language such as the definition in the Healthy Families Act. The initiative's sponsors were unmoved.
So this leads up to the obvious question...support the initiative or not? It's a painful choice. Is there a way to vote for this initiative but send a loud and clear message to SIEU and to all the state level groups working on paid sick leave that what they did was unacceptable and unnecessary and should not be repeated elsewhere? Is there a way to vote for this initiative, which goes by the name "The Healthy Families Act," while not diluting or compromising on the provision of the federal "Healthy Families Act" that includes the much broader definition?
If I lived in Ohio, I know I wouldn't just vote against this initiative. That wouldn't make my voice heard in other states and across the country. But would I vote for it, knowing this history? Well, I'd like to hear what Ohioans have to say about this...
What I have to report is both sad and infuriating.
Ohio has a Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that bars marriage and recognition of marriage for same-sex couples but also says the state “shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effect of marriage.” Perhaps Ohio could not mandate paid sick leave that employees could use to care for a sick unmarried partner. That doesn't really create a "legal status," but someone could argue that it does.
But, as my earlier post pointed out, there are at least two good alternative options: include anyone who is a member of the employee's household or include the definition that federal workers now have -- anyone related by blood or affinity whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. The latter definition is in Senator's Kennedy's Healthy Families Act.
Brian Dunn told me that Ohioans for Healthy Families, a coalition spearheaded by SIEU, consulted with their lawyers and was told that a more inclusive definition would not be possible given the state DOMA. This is just dead wrong. Workers have households containing a variety of individuals; allowing a worker to balance work and family responsibilities by using sick leave to care for a sick household member would not be "recognizing a legal status" between the worker and the sick household member that "approximated marriage."
Sure, one of the right-wing groups that pushed for the Ohio DOMA might challenge the law. They would lose. Last year the Ohio Supreme Court ruled, 6-1, that the state could prosecute a man for violence against a woman he lived with "as a spouse" without running afoual of the state DOMA. In the lead-up to the case, one of the strongest proponents of Ohio's DOMA said it would not violate DOMA to make domestic violence against any household member a crime.
So now we know where Ohioans for Healthy Families was coming from. I blame both bad legal advice and what I imagine to be an inability to tolerate even the slightest chance that a right-wing maniac would challenge the law. Proponents of the initiative decided it was better to sacrifice the variety of households, including those in which many same-sex couples live. I repeat what I said in my earlier post. Shame on them.
Now as for the gay rights groups, they were not asleep at the wheel. The gay community knew the campaign excluded them, and Equality Ohio voted to oppose the measure. I have since heard that Equality Ohio voted to remain neutral on the initiative, but I have been unable to confirm this. The Human Rights Campaign was involved as well, and dealt directly with SIEU. They did supply language such as the definition in the Healthy Families Act. The initiative's sponsors were unmoved.
So this leads up to the obvious question...support the initiative or not? It's a painful choice. Is there a way to vote for this initiative but send a loud and clear message to SIEU and to all the state level groups working on paid sick leave that what they did was unacceptable and unnecessary and should not be repeated elsewhere? Is there a way to vote for this initiative, which goes by the name "The Healthy Families Act," while not diluting or compromising on the provision of the federal "Healthy Families Act" that includes the much broader definition?
If I lived in Ohio, I know I wouldn't just vote against this initiative. That wouldn't make my voice heard in other states and across the country. But would I vote for it, knowing this history? Well, I'd like to hear what Ohioans have to say about this...
WHAT'S IN THE NAME?
Another book about marriage came to my attention this weekend: "The Marriage Benefit: The Surprising Rewards of Staying Together, by psychologist Mark O'Connell. The title sounds close to that of "The Case for Marriage," Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagaher's book that I blast in my book for its "marriage promotion" propaganda and that Bella DePaulo skewers in her book, "Singled Out."
So imagine my surprise to hear what Dr. O'Connell said on Tom Ashbrook's On Point on public radio. A caller said she would not marry her male partner because same-sex couples cannot marry. She also said she would not marry because she is bisexual and if her partner had been a woman she would be unable to marry her. Here's how the author responded: "Everything I wrote in the book really applies in a broader sense to the matter of intimate commitment....I wouldn't sit here and argue that one has to be formally and conventionally married in order to have the kind of benefits that come from intimacy....What we are talking about it here is what is it about sustained intimate commitment that can bring you things that are actually quite unique?"
So why call the book, "The Marriage Benefit?" Why not call it "The Intimate Commitment Benefit?" I think I know the answer. The name marriage sells. It resonates in a culture that has been inundated by the claims of the "marriage movement" and government-sponsored "marriage promotion" that the decline of marriage causes our social problems. It would actually be a radical claim in our culture that intimate commitment brings the same benefits that marriage brings. The author even said he believes in divorce! You wouldn't know it from the book title. I'm sorry this author -- and his publisher - chose not to make the more radical and nuanced claim in the title of the book itself.
So imagine my surprise to hear what Dr. O'Connell said on Tom Ashbrook's On Point on public radio. A caller said she would not marry her male partner because same-sex couples cannot marry. She also said she would not marry because she is bisexual and if her partner had been a woman she would be unable to marry her. Here's how the author responded: "Everything I wrote in the book really applies in a broader sense to the matter of intimate commitment....I wouldn't sit here and argue that one has to be formally and conventionally married in order to have the kind of benefits that come from intimacy....What we are talking about it here is what is it about sustained intimate commitment that can bring you things that are actually quite unique?"
So why call the book, "The Marriage Benefit?" Why not call it "The Intimate Commitment Benefit?" I think I know the answer. The name marriage sells. It resonates in a culture that has been inundated by the claims of the "marriage movement" and government-sponsored "marriage promotion" that the decline of marriage causes our social problems. It would actually be a radical claim in our culture that intimate commitment brings the same benefits that marriage brings. The author even said he believes in divorce! You wouldn't know it from the book title. I'm sorry this author -- and his publisher - chose not to make the more radical and nuanced claim in the title of the book itself.
Friday, July 25, 2008
SAFEGUARDING OUR FAMILIES -- FROM THE IGNORANCE OF OUR SUPPOSED ALLIES
The District of Columbia is a gay-friendly place. Our first anti-discrimination ordinance was passed in 1973. In 1976, we passed legislation banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in child custody cases. The first second-parent adoption was granted in 1991, and our highest court approved the practice in 1995.
We have had domestic partnership here in DC since 1992, although Congress (which controls DC laws...don't get me started on that!) blocked the city from spending any money to implement the law. That ban was finally lifted in 2002. The DC law allows any two people living together in a committed, familial relationship to register; in other words, it is not limited to same-sex couples.
At first few legal consequences attached to registration. Additional legal consequences have been added several times since 2002. Some of the most significant came last year, including the rights of inheritance and division of assets when the relationship ends. Effective this coming fall, registered domestic partners will have almost all of the legal consequences that attach to marriage.
The last major area that needs law reform here concerns the status of couples having children together. So it's logical that we pass legislation that will give DC what California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and Vermont already have -- a presumption that a child born to one domestic partner is the child of the other.
DC is also one of a minority of states with no statute on donor insemination. Many of those statutes are old and apply only to married (heterosexual) couples, but the modern statutes apply to all women. The best framework does two things: it says that when two people (married/registered or not) decide to have a child using donor insemination and both intend to raise the child as their own, then they are both the parents of the child; and it says that a semen donor is not a parent unless there is a written agreement to the contrary.
Legislation recently introduced in the DC City Council accomplishes these goals. So imagine the shock of the legislation's supporters when the DC Office of the Attorney General sent a letter -- but no witness -- to the July 11 hearing on the bill. The letter reflected complete ignorance about families headed by same-sex couples, about reproduction using assisted conception, and about the laws in other states. The OAG didn't know that the Social Security Administration recognizes a parent-child relationship between a child and her nonbiological mother who was in a Vermont civil union with the biological mother when the child was born, even though the Washington Post had an editorial about the case days before the letter was written!
The letter was offensive on so many levels, it's truly hard to comprehend. Because no witness showed up to defend the letter, Committee Chair Phil Mendelson couldn't question anyone from the city, and those of us supporting the bill (Michele Zavos, Bob Summersgill, Rick Rosendall on behalf of Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA), and myself) were left in disbelief and outrage.
Did I mention that DC is a gay-friendly place? We expect our elected officials and their staff -- including the city's lawyers -- to understand who we are and strive to provide our families the strongest legal protection possible. So I spent most of the last two weeks writing a detailed response to their letter. After I sent it to the OAG I received a voice mail message from the letter's author saying they would review what I wrote and "act accordingly."
Stay tuned for an update.
We have had domestic partnership here in DC since 1992, although Congress (which controls DC laws...don't get me started on that!) blocked the city from spending any money to implement the law. That ban was finally lifted in 2002. The DC law allows any two people living together in a committed, familial relationship to register; in other words, it is not limited to same-sex couples.
At first few legal consequences attached to registration. Additional legal consequences have been added several times since 2002. Some of the most significant came last year, including the rights of inheritance and division of assets when the relationship ends. Effective this coming fall, registered domestic partners will have almost all of the legal consequences that attach to marriage.
The last major area that needs law reform here concerns the status of couples having children together. So it's logical that we pass legislation that will give DC what California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and Vermont already have -- a presumption that a child born to one domestic partner is the child of the other.
DC is also one of a minority of states with no statute on donor insemination. Many of those statutes are old and apply only to married (heterosexual) couples, but the modern statutes apply to all women. The best framework does two things: it says that when two people (married/registered or not) decide to have a child using donor insemination and both intend to raise the child as their own, then they are both the parents of the child; and it says that a semen donor is not a parent unless there is a written agreement to the contrary.
Legislation recently introduced in the DC City Council accomplishes these goals. So imagine the shock of the legislation's supporters when the DC Office of the Attorney General sent a letter -- but no witness -- to the July 11 hearing on the bill. The letter reflected complete ignorance about families headed by same-sex couples, about reproduction using assisted conception, and about the laws in other states. The OAG didn't know that the Social Security Administration recognizes a parent-child relationship between a child and her nonbiological mother who was in a Vermont civil union with the biological mother when the child was born, even though the Washington Post had an editorial about the case days before the letter was written!
The letter was offensive on so many levels, it's truly hard to comprehend. Because no witness showed up to defend the letter, Committee Chair Phil Mendelson couldn't question anyone from the city, and those of us supporting the bill (Michele Zavos, Bob Summersgill, Rick Rosendall on behalf of Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA), and myself) were left in disbelief and outrage.
Did I mention that DC is a gay-friendly place? We expect our elected officials and their staff -- including the city's lawyers -- to understand who we are and strive to provide our families the strongest legal protection possible. So I spent most of the last two weeks writing a detailed response to their letter. After I sent it to the OAG I received a voice mail message from the letter's author saying they would review what I wrote and "act accordingly."
Stay tuned for an update.
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