marriage equality

Bigotted Atkins Cheesecake Family denies partner access to gay son

From today’s Indy Star:

Brett Conrad spent more than half his life as Patrick Atkins’ partner. For 25 years, the men shared bank accounts, apartments and eventually a home in Fishers.

But when Atkins, 47, fell seriously ill in 2005, Conrad faced what many gay Hoosiers consider a travesty: no law guaranteeing them the same rights as married couples to participate in care decisions for their ill partners.

Conrad, 47, spent much of the past two years trying to win guardianship of Atkins from Atkins’ parents, Thomas and Jeanne of Carmel. Jeanne Atkins is quoted in court documents as saying she believes homosexuality is a sin and that she disapproves of the men’s relationship. The parents have barred Conrad from visiting their now-disabled son in their home where he lives.
In June, Conrad won visitation rights from the Indiana Court of Appeals, but the court upheld an earlier Hamilton County ruling that left control of Atkins’ care to his parents.

Gay-rights activists say the men’s story illustrates the discrimination embedded in Indiana law and underscores why gay marriage should be allowed.

On the other side, opponents of same-sex marriage say the case could have been prevented if Conrad and Atkins had used existing laws that can give unmarried couples — straight and gay — the legal right to act on each other’s behalf.

Read the whole article (linked above) for more information, including some great references about what legal documents you should have in place to protect yourself from this sort of madness.

And obviously – I’m never eating Atkins Cheesecake again, and of course, I’m contacting the Atkins family to tell them why that’s the case.

Continue ReadingBigotted Atkins Cheesecake Family denies partner access to gay son

SJR-7 Died in Committee

  • Post author:
  • Post category:GLBT Issues

From numerous sources, but quoting from the Indiana Equality email:

Marriage Discrimination Amendment dies in committee
Indianapolis – Indiana Equality announced today that the Indiana House of Representative’s Rules and Legislative Procedures Committee voted five to five on Senate Joint Resolution 7 (SJR-7). As a result, the amendment will not be brought for a vote by the full House of Representatives and will not be voted upon by the Indiana General Assembly.

The Indy Star has an article on it.

Advance Indiana breaks down the vote:

Rep. Terri Austin (D)-No
Rep. Scott Pelath (D)-No
Rep. Russ Stilwell (D)-No
Rep. Earl Harris (D)-No
Rep. Bob Kuzman (D)-No
Rep. Randy Borror (R)-Yes
Rep. Ralph Foley (R)-Yes
Rep. Eric Turner (R)-Yes
Rep. Matt Whetstone (R)-Yes
Rep. Dennis Oxley (D)-Yes

Wow, that was brave of the democrats to stand against this – we can’t forget them. I’ll be sending them some flowers, without a doubt.
I’m so happy I could cry.

Continue ReadingSJR-7 Died in Committee

Catholic Archbishop Doesn’t Know Difference Between Sex and Rape

In commenting on Italy’s current proposed same-sex civil unions bill, Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco revealed that he doesn’t understand the difference between sex and rape:

“Why say ‘no’ to forms of legally recognised co-habitation which create alternatives to the family? Why say ‘no’ to incest?” he said at a meeting of Church workers, according to a report in La Repubblica daily.

“Why say ‘no’ to the pedophile party in Holland?” he said.

I’ve said this many times, – it’s scary how many religious and conservative people don’t understand that bestiality, pedophilia, and in most cases incest are illegal because they are forms of rape, wherein one party can’t give informed consent to the act. Makes me want to keep my family members and pets as far away as possible from Republicans and Catholic clergy.

Continue ReadingCatholic Archbishop Doesn’t Know Difference Between Sex and Rape

Lilly Opposes SJR-7

As reported in the Indy Star (and by bilerico.com, Advance Indiana and Taking Down Words):
Eli Lilly has joined several other large Indiana corporations (Cummins, Wellpoint, Dow AgroSciences) in opposing SJR-7, the Marriage Discrimination Amendment:

“As a result of this uncertainty (over what the amendment’s impact might be,)” Murphy wrote, “some employees may choose to leave Indiana to work in a state where these benefits are perceived not to be threatened. Given the great lengths Lilly takes to attract and retain top talent from around the world, we oppose any legislation that might impair our ability to offer competitive employee benefits or negatively impact our recruitment and retention.”
In addition, Murphy wrote, Lilly is concerned the amendment “sends an unwelcoming signal to current and future employees making Indiana appear intolerant.”

Bilerico notes that the legislation is still tabled in the House Committee, and although there are rumors about when it will reappear for further discussion and votes, it hasn’t yet been scheduled.

Continue ReadingLilly Opposes SJR-7

Indiana Newspapers Against SJR-7

I was in the middle of putting this post together when Bilerico beat me to it… Newspapers that have come out against the SJR-7 marriage discrimination amendment legislation:

Continue ReadingIndiana Newspapers Against SJR-7

House committee tables SJR-7 vote

According to Bil from Bilerico:

The House Rules and Legislative Affairs committee listened to three hours of testimony regarding SJR-7, the proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions. After several members of the committee commented that they’d like more time to review the testimony before voting on the matter, Chair Scott Pelath closed the hearing without holding a vote.

I’m sincerely hoping this is a good thing… I’m also hoping that if/when it does come to a vote, I can be there. I wasn’t able to take off work today because of all the stuff I have left to do after SXSW.

UPDATE: More on the committee meeting and the amendment from the Star.

UPDATE: The South Bend Tribune makes it sound much more like the amendment may die in committee.

Continue ReadingHouse committee tables SJR-7 vote

SJR-7 Assigned to Committee

House Joint Resolution 15 (HJR-15), the legislation formerly known as SJR-7 and the marriage discrimination amendment, has been assigned to committee in the house. It’s been placed in the House Rule and Legislative Procedures Committee.

Please contact the members of this committee (information below) to oppose this legislation – for Democrats, remind them that putting this on the ballot in 2008 will kill the Democratic lead in the statehouse, among other things, and that the second line of the amendment will affect all unmarried Hoosiers. Ask them to change the ambiguous and broad wording.

Chair: Representative Scott Pelath (D)
http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_democrats/repsites/r09/contact.html

Vice Chair: Representative Russ Stilwell (D)
http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_democrats/repsites/r74/contact.html

Rep. Terri J. Austin (D)
http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_democrats/repsites/r36/contact.html

Rep. Earl Harris (D)
http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_democrats/repsites/r2/contact.html

Rep. Bob Kuzman (D)
http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_democrats/repsites/r19/contact.html

Rep. Dennie Oxley (D)
http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_democrats/repsites/r73/contact.html

Re. Matt Whetstone (R)
http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_republicans/homepages/r40/

Rep. Randy Borror (R)
http://www.in.gov/legislative/homepages/R84/

Ralph Foley (R)
http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_republicans/homepages/r47/

Rep. P. Eric Turner (R)
http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_republicans/homepages/r32/

Continue ReadingSJR-7 Assigned to Committee

SJR-7 and Eric Miller

Due to supervising all the work on my old house over the past few weeks, and the work on our current home (which is still ongoing. Sigh.), and a busy time at work, and preparation to go to SXSW, I’m guilty of quite a few “drive-by” posts: where I mention important things without enough context (or appropriate editing, grammar, spelling, etc.) or worse yet, fail to mention important things. Here’s a bit of a round-up of some Important issues I’ve been neglecting…

SJR-7 – the Marriage Discrimination Bill: got renamed for it’s entrance on the House side of the legislature: it’s now called House Joint Resolution 15 (HJR 15). It had it’s first reading, and will be assigned to a committee sometime soon – probably this week.

Now is an important time to contact your legislators – and to urge your friends and family to do so. Evangelical “Christian” Eric Miller has thousands of people writing to legislators in support of this bill, which will take away rights for all unmarried couples, not just gay ones.

On a side note – While Laura McPhee has written an excellent, must-read article for Nuvo on the very dangerous Eric Miller and how he’s pursuing taking away not just my rights but yours too on a whole host of issues, she fails to give credit to what is obviously one of her key sources on the issue – Gary Welsh from Advance Indiana, who’s published much of this information previously. We know how I feel about not citing sources. Tut, tut!

The Bias Crimes Bill (HB 1459) – got stalled because Jackie Walorski (R-Lakeville) inserted an amendment into the bill to make it a hate crime to have an abortion. Yeah. It wasn’t helped by the fact that Eric Miller got thousands to people to send in letters protesting it. Yes, that makes no sense if you know what the bill actually does – protects every single Hoosier from crime based on a perceived bias – but Miller was able to lie to his followers about the bill, claiming it gave special protection “homosexuals and cross-dressers.” Aside from the fact that this isn’t true, isn’t it a bit odd that Miller and his ilk are so emphatic/public about defending beating up gay and transgendered people? Makes me wonder what they do in their free time.

There are quite a few other things I missed writing about – Matthew Shepard’s mom came to town to speak at the University of Indianapolis on Tuesday night. I had the opportunity to go, but didn’t have time to attend. I’d really like to have seen her speak.

Continue ReadingSJR-7 and Eric Miller

University Domestic Partnership Benefits at Risk

  • Post author:
  • Post category:GLBT Issues

In a neat bit of investigative work, Bil Browning discovered that SJR-7 author Brandt Hershman’s statements about the bill not affecting domestic partnership benefits for Purdue and Indiana University faculty members is not only false, but that he wrote the bill specifically to target those rights.

Bill uncovered legislation by Hershman to repeal those rights that had been killed several ago in the legislature – exposing Hershmans’s true intent. Read more about that here…

Now this won’t just mean that the faculty members who enjoy domestic partnership benefits will lose them if SJR-7 passes. It will mean that Purdue, IU, Ball State and other universities won’t be able to attract quality faculty members in the future, which will have a devastating effect on the quality of education in Indiana. The state of Wisconsin can testify to that:

This summer, Wisconsin lost a good deal of its edge in the nanotech revolution thanks to the Legislature’s refusal to provide domestic partner benefits to university employees. That refusal, plus the Legislature’s push to ban gay marriage, has prompted a leading nanotech researcher, Robert Carpick, an associate engineering physics professor, to leave the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a job at the University of Pennsylvania.

And if that, along with Michigan’s recent repeal of benefits for university employees doesn’t properly scare the crap out of Purdue and Indiana University, what’s going on in Kentucky right now should. A bill to strip universities of those rights in that state is moving through their state legislature, with some pretty serious affects:

Last year, during the debate over bills designed to improve Kentucky’s lagging math and science scores, it came up that the higher educational institutions in the state of Kentucky graduated only one qualified physics teacher last year. One.

Kentucky’s ability to attract qualified faculty to their sagging universities will die off as well, and the already poor quality of education that can’t even produce physics teachers now will deteriorate further.

Continue ReadingUniversity Domestic Partnership Benefits at Risk